Dr. Mardy's Dictionary of Metaphorical Quotations
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“V” Quotations
V-FOR-VICTORY SIGN
(see also [Hand] SIGNAL and SIGN LANGUAGE and VICTORY)
The V sign is the symbol of the unconquerable will of the occupied territories, and a portent of the fate awaiting the Nazi tyranny. Winston Churchill, in BBC-Radio message to the people of Europe (July 20, 1941)
QUOTE NOTE: Churchill may have popularized—and even personified—the V-for-Victory hand sign, but he didn’t originate it. That honor goes to Victor de Laveleye, A Belgian politician who sought exile in England after the Nazi occupation of his country. In a January 14, 1941 broadcast on Radio Belgique—a BBC station transmitting to occupied Belgium—de Laveleye suggested the use of the letter “V” as a symbol of unity and resistance. Almost immediately, “V” graffiti began showing up all around Belgium. In June of 1941, the hand signal became the central component of a “V for Victory” campaign spearheaded by the BBC. For more, go to: V-for-Victory Sign.
VACUOUSNESS & VACUITY
(see also EMPTY-HEADED and FOOLS & FOOLISHNESS and INANE and SHALLOW and SUPERFICIAL)
Once you fully apprehend the vacuity of a life without struggle you are equipped with the basic means of salvation. Tennessee Williams, “On a Streetcar Named Success,” in The New York Times (Nov. 30, 1947)
VACUUM
(see also ABSENCE and EMPTINESS and NOTHINGNESS and VOID)
VALUES
(see also BELIEFS and CULTURE and PRIORITIES)
California…is the place that sets the trends and establishes the values for the rest of the country; like a slow ooze, California culture spreads eastward across the land. Ada Louise Huxtable, in The Unreal America (1993)
In a foreign country people don’t expect you to be just like them, but in Los Angeles, which is infiltrating the world, they don’t consider that you might be different because they don’t recognize any values except their own. And soon there may not be any others. Pauline Kael, in I Lost It at the Movies (1965)
Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one’s own values. Ayn Rand, “The Objectivist Ethics,” paper read at University of Wisconsin (Feb. 9, 1961); reprinted in The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)
Later in the paper, Rand wrote: “Man must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. To live for his own sake means that the achievement of his own happiness is man’s highest moral purpose.”
False values begin with the worship of things. Susan Sontag, a reflection of the character Frau Anders, in a letter to her daughter Lucrezia, in The Benefactor (1963)
VANITY
(see also CONCEIT and PRETENSION and PRIDE and SELF-DECEPTION and VANITY & PRIDE and VICE)
A desire to be observed, considered, esteemed, praised, beloved, and admired by his fellows is one of the earliest as well as the keenest dispositions discovered in the heart of man. John Adams, in Discourses on Davila (1789)
The passion of vanity has its own depths in the spirit, and is powerfully militant. Elizabeth Bowen, the voice of the narrator, in the short story, “The Apple Tree,” in Look at All Those Roses (1941)
Nothing is so at odds with prayer as vanity. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1928 diary entry, in Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Vol. 10: Barcelona, Berlin, New York, 1928–1931 (2008)
Bonhoeffer preceded the observation by writing: “It’s much easier for me to imagine a praying murderer, a praying prostitute, than a vain person praying.”
The passion of vanity has its own depths in the spirit, and is powerfully militant. Elizabeth Bowen, “The Apple Tree,” in Look at All Those Roses (1941)
ERROR ALERT: This quotation is often mistakenly presented as: “There is nothing so agonizing to the fine skin of vanity as the application of a rough truth.”
The human heart has so many crannies where vanity hides, so many holes where falsehood works, is so decked out with deceiving hypocrisy, that it often dupes itself. John Calvin, in Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536)
What greater vanity is there than that of boasting without any ground for it? John Calvin, in Commentary on the Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians, Vol. 1 (1848; John Pringle, ed.)
A moment later, Calvin went on to add: “A man that extols himself is a fool and an idiot.”
Guard against that vanity which courts a compliment, or is fed by it. Thomas Chalmers, a journal entry (May 10, 1810), in Memoirs of Thomas Chalmers (1867; William Hanna, ed.)
Vanity is a strong temptation to lying; it makes people magnify their merit, over-flourish their family, and tell strange stories of their interest and acquaintance. Jeremy Collier, in
Pearls of Great Price (1838)
Vanity plays lurid tricks with our memory. Joseph Conrad, the voice of the narrator, Charles Marlowe, in Lord Jim (1900)
Is there any vanity greater than the vanity of those who believe themselves without it? Amanda Cross (pen name of Carolyn Heilbrun), a reflection of protagonist Kate Fansler, in The Question of Max (1976)
There is no arena in which vanity displays itself under such a variety of forms as in conversation. Germaine de Staël, quoted in R. R. Madden, The Literary Life and Correspondence of the Countess of Blessington, Vol. 1 (1855)
Vanity ruins more women than love. Marie du Deffand, from a letter to Voltaire (c. 1750), in Lettres à Voltaire (1922; Joseph Trabucco, ed.)
Vain people can’t bear to be crossed. They are the center of their world, and if the circumstances don’t allow the world to meet their needs, then the circumstances need to be changed. Their actions appear proportionate to them, because any situation where their needs aren’t being met is an affront. Judith Flanders, the character Mr. Rudiger speaking, in A Bed of Scorpions: A Mystery (2016)
It is an indisputable fact that only vain people wage war against the vanity of others. Marguerite Gardiner (Lady Blessington), a reflection of the unnamed narrator and protagonist, in The Confessions of an Elderly Lady (1838)
Stupidity talks, vanity acts. Victor Hugo, “Thoughts,” in Victor Hugo’s Intellectual Autobiography (1907; Lorenzo O’Rourke, trans.)
Vanity is a desire of personal glory, the wish to be appreciated, honored, and run after, not because of one’s personal qualities, merits, and achievements, but because of one’s individual existence. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, in The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe (1906; Bailey Saunders, ed. & trans.)
Goethe concluded: “At best, therefore, it is a frivolous beauty whim it befits.”
Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of greater vanity in others; it makes us vain, in fact, of our modesty. Louis Kronenberger, in Company Manners: A Cultural Inquiry into American Life (1954)
If vanity does not overthrow all virtues, at least she makes them totter. François, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, in Maximes (1665)
The most violent passions sometimes leave us at rest, but vanity agitates us constantly. François, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, in Maximes (1665)
One will rarely err if extreme actions be ascribed to vanity, ordinary actions to habit, and mean actions to fear. Friedrich Nietzsche, in Human, All Too Human (1878)
An author, like any other so-called artist, is a man in whom the normal vanity of all men is so vastly exaggerated that he finds it a sheer impossibility to hold it in. H. L. Mencken, “The Fringes of Lovely Letters,” in Prejudices: Fifth Series (1926)
QUOTE NOTE: Mencken was explaining why “rational men and women engage in so barbarous and exhausting a vocation” as writing. About the powerful role vanity plays in the motivation of authors, he added: “His overpowering impulse is to gyrate before his fellow men, flapping his wings and emitting defiant yells. This being forbidden by the police of all civilized countries, he takes it out by putting his yells on paper. Such is the thing called self-expression.”
There is scarcely any fault in another which offends us more than vanity, though perhaps there is none that really injures us so little. Hannah More, “Self-Love,” in Practical Piety (1811)
Marriage defeats and humbles the man since it soon or late robs him of his greatest bulwark, viz., vanity. George Jean Nathan, “Woman,” in The Theater, the Drama, the Girls (1921)
Everyone has his vanity, and each one’s vanity is his forgetting that there are others with an equal soul. Fernando Pessoa, in The Book of Disquiet (1982; first Eng. trans., 1991)
QUOTE NOTE: This passage has also been translated: “Everyone is vain about something, and the vanity of each of us consists in forgetting that there are others with souls like ours.” The Book of Disquiet, published 47 years after Pessoa’s death in 1935, was presented to the world as the autobiography of one of Pessoa’s heteronyms, an unmarried Portuguese bookkeeper named Bernardo Soares. The book was pieced together from thousands of pages of Pessoa’s diary entries, personal and philosophical ramblings, autobiographical vignettes, poems, and other literary fragments. For more on Pessoa, see this review of a new translation of The Book of Disquiet in The Guardian (June 21, 2001).
Provided a man is not mad, he can be cured of every folly but vanity; there is no cure for this but experience, if indeed there is any cure for it at all. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in Emile: Or, On Education (1762)
Rousseau continued with this advice on dealing with youthful vanity: “When it first appears we can at least prevent its further growth. But do not on this account waste your breath on empty arguments to prove to the youth that he is like other men and subject to the same weaknesses.”
QUOTE NOTE: I’ve also seen the full passage above translated this way: “The sole folly of which one cannot disabuse a man who is not mad is vanity. For this there is no cure other than experience—if, indeed, anything can cure it. At its birth, at least, one can prevent its growth. Do not get lost in fine reasonings intended to prove to the adolescent that he is a man like others and subject to the same weaknesses.”
ERROR ALERT: For well over a century, this quotation has been routinely—and mistakenly—presented as, “Vanity is the quicksand of reason.” The principal culprit appears to be Maturin M. Ballou, who offered the abridged version in his popular Pearls of Thought (1882). The mistaken version is now more common on internet sites than the correct phrasing.
We crave support in vanity, as we do in religion, and never forgive contradictions in that sphere. George Santayana, in The Life of Reason (1905–06)
Every author, however modest, keeps a most outrageous vanity chained like a madman in the padded cell of his breast. Logan Pearsall Smith, in Afterthoughts (1931)
ERROR ALERT: Many quotation anthologies and internet sites mistakenly identify Stevenson’s novel Prince Otto (1885) as the source of this observation.
Let us thank God for imparting to us, poor weak mortals, the inestimable blessing of vanity. How many half-witted votaries of the arts—poets, painters, actors, musicians—live upon this food, and scarcely any other! William Makepeace Thackeray, “The Artists,” in Character Sketches, Part Two of Irish Sketch Book (1843)
ERROR ALERT: The quotation is often mistakenly presented as imparting unto us rather than imparting to us.
There are no grades of vanity, there are only grades of ability in concealing it. Mark Twain, a notebook entry (Nov. 26, 1896), in Mark Twain’s Notebook (1935; Albert Bigelow Paine, ed.)
VANITY & PRIDE
(see also CONCEIT and PRETENSION and PRIDE and SELF-DECEPTION and VANITY and VICE)
Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves; vanity to what we would have others think of us. Jane Austen, the character Mary Bennett speaking, in Pride and Prejudice (1813)
Ayrton added: “In men, it seldom heals and often grows septic.”
The sin of pride may be a small or a great thing in someone’s life, and hurt vanity a passing pinprick or a self-destroying or even murderous obsession. Possibly, more people kill themselves and others out of hurt vanity than out of envy, jealousy, malice or desire for revenge. Iris Murdoch, the voice of the narrator, in The Philosopher’s Pupil (1983)
Pride is an established conviction of one’s own paramount worth in some particular respect, while vanity is the desire of rousing such a conviction in others, and it is generally accompanied by the secret hope of ultimately coming to the same conviction oneself. Arthur Schopenhauer, “Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life,” in Parerga and Paralipomena (1851)
Schopenhauer continued: “Pride works from within; it is the direct appreciation of oneself. Vanity is the desire to arrive at this appreciation indirectly, from without.”
VARIETY
(see also BORES & BOREDOM and CHANGE and DIVERSITY and FAMILIARITY and ROUTINE and TEDIUM & TEDIOUSNESS and MONOTONY)
QUOTE NOTE: This is generally regarded as the origin of the proverbial saying Variety is the spice of life. The underlying idea was not original to Cowper, though. The notion that variety was a kind of antidote to staleness was first advanced in the first century B.C. (see the Publilius Syrus entry below).
VEGETABLES
(see also FARMING & FARMERS and FLOWERS and FOOD and FRUITS and GARDENING and NATURE and PLANTS and SEEDS and VEGETABLES—SPECIFIC KINDS and WEEDS)
Colette wrote of vegetables as if they were love objects and of sex as if it were an especially delightful department of gardening. Brigid Brophy, on Colette, quoted in A. Stibbs, Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle (1992)
To get the best results, you must talk to your vegetables. Prince Charles (Prince of Wales), quoted in “Sayings of the Week,” The Observer (London; Sep. 28, 1986)
VEGETABLES—SPECIFIC KINDS
(see also VEGETABLES)
ASPARAGUS
My rebelliousness went so deep that, faced with a can of asparagus that instructed me to open at this end, I always, stubbornly, opened it at the other. Dorothy Gilman, in A New Kind of Country (1978)
BEANS
Dried peas and beans, being rather on the dull side, much like dull people respond readily to the right contacts. Irma S. Rombauer, in The Joy of Cooking (1931)
BEET
The beet is the most intense of vegetables. The radish, admittedly is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious. Tom Robbins, in Jitterbug Perfume (1984)
This metaphorical masterpiece is from “Today’s Special” which appears to be a kind of preface or prologue to the work. The narrator continued in a figurative frenzy:
“Slavic people get their physical characteristics from potatoes, their smoldering inquietude from radishes, their seriousness from beets.
“The beet is the melancholy vegetable, the one most willing to suffer. You can’t squeeze blood out of a turnip… [ellipsis in original]
“The beet is the murderer returned to the scene of the crime. The beet is what happens when the cherry finishes with the carrot. The beet is the ancient ancestor of the autumn moon, bearded, buried, all but fossilized.”
BROCCOLI
The local groceries are all out of broccoli,/Loccoli. Robert Blount, Jr., “Against Broccoli,” in “Three Poems,” The Atlantic Monthly (July, 1976)
I’m president of the United States, and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli! George H. W. Bush, quoted in The New York Times (March 23, 1990)
I looked in the refrigerator one day and nearly died. I saw broccoli in there that had hair all over it and was moving. I called Security for help. Oprah Winfrey, quoted in Bill Adler, The Uncommon Wisdom of Oprah Winfrey (1997)
CARROTS
Large, naked, raw carrots are acceptable as food only to thise who live in hutches eagerly awaiting Easter. Fran Lebowitz, in Metropolitan Life (1978)
CAULIFLOWER
QUOTE NOTE: This is how the observation appears on most internet sites these days, but it was originally part of this larger thought: “Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.”
GARLIC
Garlic, like perfume, must be used with discretion and on the proper occasions. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, in Cross Creek Cookery (1942)
LEEK
LETTUCE
Lyda was an exuberant, even a dramatic gardener…always holding up a lettuce or a bunch of radishes, with an air of resolute courage, as though she had shot them herself. Renata Adler, in Speedboat (1986)
PARSLEY
PEAS
Dried peas and beans, being rather on the dull side, much like dull people respond readily to the right contacts. Irma S. Rombauer, in The Joy of Cooking (1931)
RADISH
Lyda was an exuberant, even a dramatic gardener…always holding up a lettuce or a bunch of radishes, with an air of resolute courage, as though she had shot them herself. Renata Adler, in Speedboat (1986)
They are the one amateur crop to be relied on. Many are sowed, but few are eaten, except those first prompt miraculous test cases which the gardener wipes on the seat of his overalls and eats on the spot, with no condiment but grit. Bertha Damon, in A Sense of Humus (1943)
The beet is the most intense of vegetables. The radish, admittedly is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious. Tom Robbins, in Jitterbug Perfume (1984)
This metaphorical masterpiece is from “Today’s Special” which appears to be a kind of preface or prologue to the work. The narrator continued in a figurative frenzy:
“Slavic people get their physical characteristics from potatoes, their smoldering inquietude from radishes, their seriousness from beets.
“The beet is the melancholy vegetable, the one most willing to suffer. You can’t squeeze blood out of a turnip… [ellipsis in original]
“The beet is the murderer returned to the scene of the crime. The beet is what happens when the cherry finishes with the carrot. The beet is the ancient ancestor of the autumn moon, bearded, buried, all but fossilized.”
SQUASH
TOMATO
Nothing, nothing, nothing tastes like a ripe tomato you grew yourself, eaten on the evening of a day so hot there can be no question of even a nip of spring or fall. Robin Chotzinoff, in People With Dirty Hands (1996)
Kijewski preceded the thought by writing: “A five-year-old with a stick, a seed, and a watering can could grow zucchini—the original, no-talent, guaranteed-gratification vegetable.”
ZUCCHINI
A five-year-old with a stick, a seed, and a watering can could grow zucchini— the original, no-talent, guaranteed-gratification vegetable. Karen Kijewski, in Katwalk (1989)
Kijewski went on to add: “Tomatoes are the runner-up to zucchini in the no-talent, guaranteed-gratification vegetable department.”
VEGETARIANISM & VEGANISM
(see also ANIMAL RIGHTS and BARBECUE and BREAKFAST and COOKERY & COOKING and DIETS & DIETING and DINNER & DINING and EATING and GASTRONOMY and HUNGER and MEALS and MEAT and NUTRITION and OBESITY and STOMACH and VEGETABLES)
You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity. Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Fate,” in The Conduct of Life (1850)
Vegetarianism is harmless enough, though it is apt to fill a man with wind and self-righteousness. Sir Robert Hutchison, in 1930 address to British Medical Association (Winnipeg, Manitoba; specific date undetermined)
If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian. Paul McCartney, widely attributed, but not confirmed
QUOTE NOTE: An original source for this quotation has not been found, but there is general agreement that it is authentic (in a 2010 video produced by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), McCartney preceded the thought with the words, “As I’ve often said”). It’s possible the remark was inspired by an 1850 observation from Ralph Waldo Emerson (see his entry above). The full PETA video, which is graphic in its portrayal of animal cruelty, may be seen at If Slaughterhouses Had Glass Walls.
I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more civilized. Henry David Thoreau, “Higher Laws,” in Walden (1854)
A bit earlier in the essay, Thoreau wrote: “I believe that every man who has ever been earnest to preserve his higher or poetic faculties in the best condition has been particularly inclined to abstain from animal food, and from much food of any kind.”
A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is immoral. Leo Tolstoy, in letter to Dr. Eugen Heinrich Schmitt (specific date undetermined); reprinted in The Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi: Essays, Letters, Miscellanies (1899)
VENGEANCE
VERMONT
VERSE
(see also POEM and POETRY and POETS and POETS—ON THEMSELVES and POETS—DESCRIBED BY OTHERS and RHYME and SONNETS)
If Galileo had said in verse that the world moved, the Inquisition might have let him alone. Thomas Hardy, notebook entry (Oct. 17, 1896), quoted in The Life and Work of Thomas Hardy (1984; Michael Millgate, ed.)
Truth shines the brighter clad in verse. Jonathan Swift, “To Stella” (1720), in The Works, Vol. X (1803)
VIBRATOR
(see also ORGASM and SEX & SEXUALITY)
The character, played by Lily Tomlin in the Broadway play, continued: “Can you afford one, you say? Can you afford not to have one? Why, the time it saves alone is worth the price. I’d rank it right up there with Minute Rice, Reddi-Wrap, and Pop-Tarts.”
VICE
(see also EVIL and HYPOCRISY and VICE & VIRTUE and VIRTUE and SIN)
QUOTE NOTE: Even though I’ve been unable to find this observation in any of Ballou’s published works, I still lean toward considering it legitimate. Maturin Murray Ballou, the editor of the Treasury of Thought anthology, was Hosea Ballou’s son and something of an authority on his father’s work; I believe he deserves the benefit of the doubt.
One vice worn out makes us wiser than fifty tutors. Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, an observation from the fictional professor Augustus Tomlinson, in “Tomlinsoniana,” an appendix to Paul Clifford (1830)
It is only in some corner of the brain which we leave empty that Vice can obtain a lodging. When she knocks at your door, my son, be able to say, “No room for your ladyship—pass on.” Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, the character Augustine Caxton in a letter to his son, in The Caxtons: A Family Picture (1849)
QUOTE NOTE: Marie de Gournay was an aspiring young intellectual—and an early feminist—when, at age 23, she first met Montaigne in 1588 (he was 55 and already famous for his Essais, the first volume of which appeared in 1580). Women were denied formal education at the time, but de Gournay was fluent in both Latin and Greek, and already well acquainted with the classical writers of antiquity. Montaigne greatly admired her, clearly viewed her as a protégé, and even described “a fatherly love” for her in one of his essays (although he rendered her name as Marie Gournay le Jars). After Montaigne’s death in 1592, his widow made the young woman a literary executor. In 1595, she put together the first posthumous edition of Montaigne’s essays, introduced by a lengthy Preface in praise of the man and his works.
A sympathetic person is placed in the dilemma of a swimmer among drowning men, who all catch at him, and if he give so much as a leg or a finger, they will drown him. They wish to be saved from the mischiefs of their vices, but not from their vices. Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Experience,” in Essays: Second Series (1844)
ERROR ALERT: The closing sentence above is often mistakenly presented as if it began: “Men wish to be saved….”
Vice knows she’s ugly, so puts on her Mask. Benjamin Franklin, in Poor Richard’s Almanack (March, 1746)
QUOTE NOTE: Franklin, who “borrowed” so frequently from the writings of English and European writers, was almost certainly inspired by a Thomas Fuller observation, to be found below.
Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man. Benjamin Franklin, in Poor Richard’s Almanack (Dec., 1755)
This is the danger, when vice becomes a precedent. Ben Jonson, “Of the Diversity of Wits,” in Timber: Or Discoveries Made Upon Men and Matter (1640)
At the heart of every vice sits selfishness, yawning. Yahia Lababidi, “Aphorisms on Art, Morality & Spirit,”
Elephant Journal Nov. 3, 2013)
When our vices leave us, we flatter ourselves that we leave them. François, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, in Maximes (1665)
Some, either from being glued to vice by a natural attachment, or from long habit, no longer recognize its ugliness. Michel de Montaigne, “Of Repentance,” in Essays (1580–88)
To vice, innocence must always seem only a superior kind of chicanery. Ouida, in Wisdom, Wit and Pathos (1884)
Vice is a monster of so frightful mien/As to be hated, needs but to be seen;/But seen too oft, familiar with her face,/We first endure, then pity, then embrace. Alexander Pope, “Epistle II,” in An Essay on Man (1733-34)
Astronomy was born of superstition; eloquence of ambition, hatred, falsehood, and flattery; geometry of avarice; physics of an idle curiosity; and even moral philosophy of human pride. Thus the arts and sciences owe their birth to our vices. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in A Discourse on the Moral Effects of the Arts and Sciences (1750)
Depend upon it, of all vices, drinking is the most incompatible with greatness. Sir Walter Scott, quoted in John Gibson Lockhart, Memoirs of The Life of Sir Walter Scott, Vol 1 (1837 )
The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices/Make instruments to plague us. William Shakespeare, the character Edgar speaking, in King Lear (1605-06)
I haven’t a particle of confidence in a man who has no redeeming petty vices. Mark Twain, “Answers to Correspondents,” in
Sketches New and Old (1875)
QUOTE NOTE: Twain is the original author of the redeeming vices sentiment, even though Oscar Wilde is often given the credit (see the Wilde entry below).
It may be that vice, depravity, and crime are nearly always, or even perhaps always, in their essence, attempts to eat beauty, to eat what we should only look at. Simone Weil, in Waiting for God (1950)
ERROR ALERT: Numerous websites mistakenly present an altered version of the observation: Vice does not lose its character by becoming fashionable.
QUOTE NOTE: See the Mark Twain entry above for the original appearance of the redeeming vices sentiment.
VICE & VIRTUE
(see also EVIL and HYPOCRISY and VICE and VIRTUE and SIN)
Every life is a march from innocence, through temptation, to virtue or to vice. Lyman Abbott, in Problems of Life (1900)
Abbott continued: “There is no way in which virtue can be won save by battle; there is no way in which battle can be fought without possibility of defeat.”
Prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue. Francis Bacon, “Of Adversity,” in Essays (1625)
Bacon preceded the thought by writing: “Certainly virtue is like precious odors, most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed.”
The vices of which we are full we carefully hide from others, and we flatter ourselves with the notion that they are small and trivial; we sometimes even embrace them as virtues. John Calvin, in Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)
It is easier to get on with vices than with virtues. The vices, accommodating by nature, help each other, are full of mutual indulgence, whereas the jealous virtues combat and annihilate each other, showing in everything their incompatibility and their intolerance. E. M. Cioran, in The Trouble With Being Born (1973)
There is a capacity of virtue in us, and there is a capacity of vice to make your blood creep. Ralph Waldo Emerson, journal entry (April 25, 1831)
Search others for their virtues, thyself for thy vices. Benjamin Franklin, in Poor Richard’s Almanack (Dec., 1738)
There are some faults so nearly allied to excellence that we can scarce weed out the vice without eradicating the virtue. Oliver Goldsmith, the character Sir William Honeywood speaking, in The Good-Natur'd Man (1768)
Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue, that it is always respected, even when it is associated with vice. Samuel Johnson, a June 11, 1784 remark, quoted in James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
QUOTE NOTE: This is a leaner translation of a thought from Joubert’s Pensées (1842) that was originally presented this way: “Virtue when a matter of expediency and calculation is the virtue of vice.”
QUOTE NOTE: This quotation first emerged four years earlier—and in this exact phrasing—in an article in Macmillan’s Magazine (May, 1862; “Washington During the War”). In the article, Lincoln was quoting an unnamed passenger he had met while traveling on a stagecoach.
When I the most strictly and religiously confess myself, I find that the best virtue I have has in it some tincture of vice. Michel de Montaigne, “That We Taste Nothing Pure,” in Essays (1580–88)
Our virtues and vices couple with one another, and get children that resemble both of their parents. George Savile (Lord Halifax), in Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections (1750)
Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied,/And vice sometime’s by action dignified. William Shakespeare, Friar Laurence speaking, in Romeo and Juliet (1595)
There is no vice so simple, but assumes/Some mark of virtue on his outward parts. William Shakespeare, the character Bassanio speaking, in The Merchant of Venice (c. 1596)
QUOTE NOTE: Taylor was almost certainly inspired by a famous Abraham Lincoln observation (to be seen above).
You may have noted the fact that it is a person’s virtues as often as his vices that make him difficult to live with. Kate Douglas Wiggin, the voice of the narrator, from the short story “The Midnight Cry,” in The Village Watch-Tower (1895)
Willard continued: “Vice is aggressive. It deals swift, sure blows, delights in keen-edge weapons, and prefers a hand-to-hand conflict, while virtue instinctively fights its unsavory antagonist at arm’s length; its great guns are unwieldy and slow to swing into range.”
Thoreau continued: “Goodness is the only investment that never fails.”
Nurse one vice in your bosom. Give it the attention it deserves and let your virtues spring up modestly around it. Then you’ll have the miser who’s no liar; and the drunkard who’s the benefactor of the whole city. Thornton Wilder, the character Malachi Stack speaking, in The Matchmaker (1954)
A moment later, Stack continued: “I discovered an important rule that I’m going to pass on to you. Never support two weaknesses at the same time. It’s your combination sinners—your lecherous liars and your miserly drunkards—who dishonor the vices and bring them into bad repute.”
VICE-PRESIDENTS & THE VICE-PRESIDENCY
(see also GOVERNMENT & GOVERNING and POLITICS & POLITICIANS and POLITICIANS—DESCRIBING THEMSELVES and POLITICIANS—DESCRIBED BY OTHERS and PRESIDENTS & THE PRESIDENCY and WASHINGTON, D.C.)
My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived. John Adams, on the vice-presidency, in letter to Abigail Adams (Dec. 19, 1793)
QUOTE NOTE: Adams offered this frank assessment after four years in the office. He served four more years as vice-president before being inaugurated as America's second President in 1797.
Democracy means that anyone can grow up to be President, and anyone who doesn’t grow up can be Vice-President. Johnny Carson, a reference to VP Dan Quayle, in Tonight Show monologue (Sep. 11, 1991)
Th’ prisidincy is th’ highest office in th’ gift iv the people. Th’ vice prisidincy is th’ nex’ highest an’ th’ lowest. It isn’t a crime exactly. Ye can’t be sint to jail f’r it, but it’s a kind iv disgrace. It’s like writin’ anonymous letters. Finley Peter Dunne, Mr. Dooley speaking, in “Mr. Dooley on the Duties of a Vice President,”
The Minneapolis Journal (July 23, 1904)
The vice presidency is the sand trap of American politics. It’s near the prize, and designed to be limiting. Howard Fineman, “Rx for the Veep,” in Newsweek magazine (May 20, 1991)
There cannot be a great vice president. A great man may occupy the office, but there is no way for him to become a great vice president because the office in itself is almost wholly unimportant. John Nance Garner, quoted in Colliers magazine (March 20, 1948)
A spare tire on the automobile of government. John Nance Garner, on the vice-presidency, in remarks to the press (June 19, 1934); quoted in H. L. Mencken, A New Dictionary of Quotations (1942)
The Vice-Presidency isn’t worth a pitcher of warm spit. John Nance Garner, a 1960 remark to Lyndon Johnson, quoted in Theodore H. White, The Making of the President 1960 (1961)
QUOTE NOTE: According to White, Garner offered this thought to Johnson as he was considering John F. Kennedy’s invitation to be his running mate in the 1960 presidential election. This is the first appearance of the observation in print, but many people believe Garner offered the observation decades earlier (he was FDR’s Vice-President for two terms, serving from 1933-1941). Garner was well known for his salty language, and it is commonly believed that his actual words were “a pitcher of warm piss.” In fact, that version of the quotation contention appeared in O. C. Fisher’s 1978 biography, Cactus Jack: A Biography of John Nance Garner. In the biography, which was published eleven years after Garner’s death, Fisher quoted Garner as saying about the euphemized version: “Those pantywaist writers wouldn’t print it the way I said it.” More on the story behind the quotation may be found in an informative essay by University of Texas historian Patrick Cox.
QUOTE NOTE: According to Lyons, Humphrey said this to actress Rosalind Russell after she had remarked that the presidency must be the most difficult job in the world. Humphrey claimed the VP’s job was tougher, and he offered the foregoing quote in defense of his contention.
You are his choice in a political marriage, and he expects your absolute loyalty. Hubert H. Humphrey, on the relationship between the President and Vice-President, quoted in a 1969 issue of Time magazine (specific issue undetermined)
If you are very active as vice-president, everyone in America knows your name. But that is your only property. It is not the same as real power—more like being a movie star. Norman Mailer, in Miami and the Siege of Chicago (1968)
The Vice-President of the United States is like a man in a cataleptic state: he cannot speak; he cannot move; he suffers no pain; and yet he is perfectly conscious of everything that is going on about him. Thomas R. Marshall, in remarks to the press, circa 1921; quoted in H. L. Mencken, A New Dictionary of Quotations (1942)
There were once two brothers. One ran away to sea, the other was elected Vice President, and neither was ever heard of again. Thomas R. Marshall, quoted in George W. Stimpson, A Book About American Politics (1952)
The man with the best job in the country is the Vice President. All he has to do is get up every morning and say, “How’s the president?’” Will Rogers, quoted in Gerald F. Lieberman, The Greatest Laughs of All Time (1961)
The vice-presidency is sort of like the last cookie on the plate. Everybody insists he won’t take it, but somebody always does. Bill Vaughan, quoted in Laurence J. Peter, Peter’s Quotations (1977)
VICTIMS & VICTIMHOOD
(see also CRIME and EVIL and OPPRESSION and TYRANNY and WRONGDOING)
When I can no longer bear to think of the victims of broken homes, I begin to think of the victims of intact ones. Peter De Vries, the character Augie Poole speaking, in The Tunnel of Love (1954)
We may right a wrong, but we cannot restore our victim to his primeval state of happiness. Something is lost that can never be regained. Pauline E. Hopkins, in Contending Forces: A Romance Illustrative of Negro Life North and South (1900)
For to be powerless, to be a complete victim, may be another source of power. Iris Murdoch, in The Unicorn (1963)
Why are women raped far away (say, Bosnia) called victims, while those raped nearby (say, a local campus) are playing victim politics? Gloria Steinem, in Moving Beyond Words (1994)
What hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor but the silence of the bystander. Elie Wiesel, in Harry J. Cargas, “An Interview with Elie Wiesel,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies (Jan., 1986)
VICTORY
(see also DEFEAT and FAILURE and LOSS and SUCCESS and SUCCESS & FAILURE and TRIUMPH and VICTORY & DEFEAT and VICTORY OVER SELF and WINNING & LOSING)
When you have gained a victory, do not push it too far. Eustace Budgell, in
The Spectator (Oct. 16, 1711)
Budgell continued: ’Tis sufficient to let…your Adversary see ’tis in your Power, but that you are too generous to make use of it.”
In its worst examples, victory has a lot in common with vulgarity. In athletics, business, and the White House, we can hear the voice of victory reduced to language worthy of a kindergartner, a caveman, or a drunkard. D. S. Carroll, in Victory Over Victory (2011)
The human race is intoxicated with narrow victories, for life is a string of them, like pearls that hit the floor when the rope breaks, and roll away in perfection and anarchy. Mark Helprin, the voice of the narrator, an elderly American living in Brazil, in Memoir from Antproof Case: A Novel (1995)
Victory is not won in miles but in inches. Win a little now, hold your ground, and later win a little more. Louis L’Amour, originally in The Walking Drum (1984); reprinted in A Trail of Memories: The Quotations of Louis L’Amour (1988; Angelique L’Amour, ed.)
QUOTE NOTE: The line originally appeared in L’Amour’s 1984 novel The Walking Drum.
Each victory must be applauded, because it is so easy not to battle at all, to just accept and call that acceptance inevitable. Audre Lorde, in A Burst of Light: And Other Essays (1988)
Lorde preceded the thought by writing:“Battling racism and battling heterosexism and battling apartheid share the same urgency inside me as battling cancer. None of these struggles are ever easy, and even the smallest victory is never to be taken for granted.”
Upon the fields of friendly strife/Are sown the seeds/That, upon other fields, on other days/Will bear the fruits of victory. Douglas MacArthur, verse written c. 1920, repeated in MacArthur’s memoir Reminiscences (1964)
QUOTE NOTE: MacArthur, who wrote the verse while serving as superintendent of the U. S. Military Academy at West Point (1919-22), had the words engraved over the entrance to the school’s sports gymnasium. He was almost certainly inspired by a legendary—but apocryphal—quotation attributed to the Duke of Wellington (Arthur Wellesley): “The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.”
Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity. Horace Mann, in 1859 commencement address at Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio
QUOTE NOTE: Mann, president of the college at the time, collapsed a few days after his address and died at age 63 a few weeks later, on August 2, 1859. This passage from his speech resonated so strongly with the Antioch community that, ever since, the words have been repeated to each graduating class. More than a century later, the saying was adopted as the college’s official motto and inscribed on a monument in Mann’s honor.
ERROR ALERT: Mann’s words are often mistakenly presented as some great victory.
QUOTE NOTE: Pyrrhus (319–272 B.C.), emperor of the ancient Greek city-state of Epirus, made this remark after his army’s costly victory over the Romans at the Battle of Asculum in 279 B.C. His legendary remark—also commonly presented as One more such victory and we are lost—has given us the eponymous term pyrrhic (PEER-ick) victory for a win that has inflicted such a devastating toll on the victors that it may be legitimately regarded as a kind of defeat. For more on the subject, go to Pyrrhic Victory.
The Intoxication of Victory. Arnold J. Toynbee, chapter title, in A Study of History: The Breakdowns of Civilizations, Vol. 4 (1939)
VICTORY & DEFEAT
(see also DEFEAT and FAILURE and LOSS and SUCCESS and SUCCESS & FAILURE and TRIUMPH and VICTORY and VICTORY OVER SELF and WINNING & LOSING)
If one lives long enough, one sees that every victory sooner or later turns to defeat. Simone de Beauvoir, the character Raymond Fosca speaking, in All Men Are Mortal (1946)
I am just showing the results of the terrific fight that I have waged inside of myself, and you know that the face of victory often resembles the face of defeat. Jane Bowles, the character Andy speaking, in Two Serious Ladies: A Novel (1943)
QUOTE NOTE: Andy, who is looking somewhat morose even though he has successfully negotiated an internal struggle earlier in the day, offers this thought to Miss Goering after she asks, “What on earth happened to you?” She then replies: “Victory fades so quickly that it is scarcely apparent and it is always the face of defeat that we are able to see.”
Victory is fraught with as much danger as glory. Victory has very narrow meanings and, if exaggerated or misused, can become a destructive force. The taste of defeat has a richness of experience all its own. Bill Bradley, in Life on the Run (1976)
The problems of victory are more agreeable than those of defeat, but they are no less difficult. Winston Churchill, in House of Commons speech (Nov. 11, 1942)
Victory has a hundred fathers, but no one wants to recognize defeat as his own. Count Galeazzo Ciano, a diary entry (Sep. 9, 1942)
The fullness of life is in the hazards of life. And, at the worst, there is that in us which can turn defeat into victory. Edith Hamilton, in The Great Age of Greek Literature (1942)
QUOTE NOTE: In a press conference held three months after his inauguration as president, JFK said this about the failed Bay of Pigs invasion (over the years, he employed variations of the saying, sometimes replacing victory/defeat with success/failure). If JFK had known more, he might have chosen not to use the metaphor, for it was a popular saying with Italian and German military officers in WWII. The inspiration for the sentiment came from Mussolini’s foreign minister, Count Galeazzo Ciano, who had written in a 1942 diary entry: “Victory has a hundred fathers, but no one wants to recognize defeat as his own.”
There are defeats more triumphant than victories. Michel de Montaigne, “On Cannibals,” in
Essays (1580–88) Also an example of
Oxymoronica.
Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat. Theodore Roosevelt, “The Strenuous Life,” speech at The Hamilton Club, Chicago, Illinois (April 10, 1899); later reprinted, with other writings and speeches in the book The Strenuous Life (1900)
ERROR ALERT: Numerous internet sites mistakenly present the final words as “knows neither victory nor defeat.” Many other sites, especially those outside America, follow the British English tradition of presenting the color as grey rather than gray.
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. Theodore Roosevelt, “Citizenship in a Republic,” speech at the Sorbonne (Paris; April 23, 1910)
QUOTE NOTE: This is the most widely quoted portion of Roosevelt’s “in the arena” speech, one of history’s most celebrated pieces of political oratory. As you can see by comparing this entry with the one immediately preceding it, some elements of the Paris address were expressed in Roosevelt’s 1899 “The Strenuous Life” speech.
Some are destroyed by defeat, and some made small and mean by victory. Greatness lives in one who triumphs equally over defeat and victory. John Steinbeck, the character Merlin speaking, in The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights (1976)
VIETNAM WAR
(see WAR; see also CIVIL WAR and REVOLUTIONARY WAR and WWI and WWWII and WAR—SPECIFIC WARS, N.E.C.)
McLuhan preceded the observation by saying: “Television brought the brutality of war into the comfort of the living room.”
VILLAINS
(see also ANTIHERO and BAD GUYS and CRIMINALS and HEROES & VILLAINS and REPROBATES and SCOUNDRELS)
As for an authentic villain, the real thing, the absolute, the artist, one rarely meets him even once in a lifetime. The ordinary bad hat is always in part a decent fellow. Colette (pen name of Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette), in Break of Day (1928; first published in English in 1961)
In her book, Halsey also wrote: “Democracy makes many taxing demands on its practitioners, but suspension of the intelligence is not one of them.”
Without will, without individuals, there are no heroes. But neither are there villains. And the absence of villains is as prostrating, as soul-destroying, as the absence of heroes. Gertrude Himmelfarb, “Of Heroes, Villains, and Valets,” in On Looking Into the Abyss (1994)
Is there no Villain in this World who doth not regard himself as a poor abus’d Innocent, no She-Wolf who doth not think herself a Lamb, no Shark who doth not fancy that she is a Goldfish? Erica Jong, a reflection of the title character and narrator, in Fanny: Being the True History of the Adventures of Fanny Hackabout-Jones (1980)
In the theater, as in life, we prefer a villain with a sense of humor to a hero without one. Mignon McLaughlin, in The Neurotic’s Notebook (1963)
Great villains make great movies. Staton Rabin, “The Swiniest Swine in the World—Writing Movie Villains We’ll Love to Hate,” in
Script magazine (Dec. 19, 2017)
Rabin continued: “Actors love to play them because these roles allow them to chew up the scenery. We screenwriters love to write these roles because through creating them, we exorcise our own demons. Many of us would probably be out killing the producers who turned down our last script or who forced us to rewrite Act III, if it weren’t for the catharsis that writing villains gives us.”
The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. William Shakespeare, the character Antonio speaking, alluding to Shylock, in The Merchant of Venice (c. 1596)
Antonio continued: “An evil soul producing holy witness/Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,/A goodly apple rotten at the heart. O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath.”
I set it down that/That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain. William Shakespeare, the title character speaking, in Hamlet (1601)
VIOLIN
(includes FIDDLE and VIOLIN METAPHORS; see also MUSIC & MUSICIANS and MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS—SPECIFIC INSTRUMENTS)
QUOTE NOTE: This is how the observation is presented in most quotation anthologies, but it was originally part of a larger observation about Nat Plumfield, one of Jo’s boys and a bashful young man who came alive when playing the violin:
“By and by when the violin—that most human of all instruments—had sung to them the loveliest songs without words, he said, looking about him at these old friends with what Mr. Bhaer called a ‘feeling-full’ expression of happiness and content: ‘Now let me play something that you will all remember though you won't love it as I do.’”
QUOTE NOTE: This is the way that Balzac’s famous observation is usually presented, and it is one of the most popular observations about how clumsy, or even inept, men can be in their intimate relations with women. The popular version of the sentiment appears to be an abridgment of Balzac's original words. Here's his fuller thought: “Woman is a delicious instrument of pleasure, but it is necessary to know its quivering strings, study the pose of it, its timid keyboard, the changing and capricious fingering. How many orangs—men, I mean, marry without knowing what a woman is!”
When you play a violin piece, you are a storyteller, and you’re telling a story. Joshua Bell in a FaceBook post (April 8, 2015)
Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on. Samuel Butler (1835–1902), in speech at Somerville Club (London; Feb. 27, 1895); reprinted in The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912)
And now, Doctor, we’ve done our work, so it’s time we had some play. A sandwich and a cup of coffee, and then off to violin-land, where all is sweetness and delicacy and harmony. Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes speaking, in “The Red-Headed League” (August, 1891) in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892)
Draw your chair up, and hand me my violin, for the only problem which we have still to solve is how to while away these bleak autumnal evenings. Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes speaking, in “The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor” (April, 1892) in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892)
Sharp violins proclaim/Their jealous pangs, and desperation,/Fury, frantic indignation,/Depths of pains, and height of passion,/For the fair, disdainful dame. John Dryden, in “A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day” (1687)
A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy. Albert Einstein, quoted in Dana Meachen Rau, Albert Einstein (2003)
I know that the most joy in my life has come to me from my violin. Albert Einstein, quoted in Brian Foster, “Einstein and His Love of Music,” in Physics World (January 2005)
’Tis God gives skill,/But not without men’s hands:/He could not make Antonio Stradivari’s violins/Without Antonio. George Eliot, in the poem “Stradivarius,” in The Poems of George Eliot (1891)
If the souls of lives were voiced in music, there are some that none but a great organ could express, others the clash of a full orchestra, a few to which nought but the refined and exquisite sadness of a violin could do justice. Miles Franklin, in My Brilliant Career (1901)
Franklin continued: “Many might be likened unto common pianos, jangling and out of tune, and some to the feeble piping of a penny whistle, and mine could be told with a couple of nails in a rusty tin-pot.”
Without even knowing it, we are assaulted by a high note of urgency all the time. We end up pacing ourselves to the city rhythm whether or not it’s our own. In time we even grow hard of hearing to the rest of the world. Like a violinist stuck next to the timpani, we may lose the ability to hear our own instrument. Ellen Goodman, in Making Sense (1989)
The actor must know that since he, himself, is the instrument, he must play on it to serve the character with the same effortless dexterity with which the violinist makes music on his. Just because he doesn’t look like a violin is no reason to assume his techniques should be thought of as less difficult. Uta Hagen, in A Challenge for the Actor (1991)
I feel as if I had never seen a violin before. It looks like a fabulous creature-phantom-fox spirit—wedded to the human-turned head and the left shoulder and the hands. As if something had been missing when man was created, and now he has found his needed thing—his needed voice for uttering his strangest cry by his lonely spirit. Katharine Butler Hathaway, in The Journals and Letters of the Little Locksmith (1946)
To Jack, his violin is comfort and relaxation. To his inky wife, it’s time to put her head down the waste-disposal unit again. Maureen Lipman, in How Was It for You? (1985)
QUOTE NOTE: The observation is not original to McMurtry; he was simply passing along a popular proverbial saying about aging.
An actor is supposed to be a sensitive instrument. Isaac Stern takes good care of his violin. What if everybody jumped on his violin? Marilyn Monroe, quoted in Richard Meryman, “Marilyn Lets Her Hair Down About Being Famous,” Life magazine (August 3, 1962)
Violins are the lively, forward, importunate wits, that distinguish themselves by the flourishes of imagination, sharpness of repartee, glances of satire, and bear away the upper part in every concert. Richard Steele, in The Tatler (March 31, 1710)
In his essay, Steele was likening musical instruments to the roles that people play in conversation. He continued with a less complimentary thought on the subject: “I cannot however but observe, that when a man is not disposed to hear music, there is not a more disagreeable sound in harmony than that of a violin.”
We consider that the man who can fiddle all through one of those Virginia Reels without losing his grip, may be depended upon in any kind of musical emergency. Mark Twain, “The Music,” in Virginia city Territorial Enterprise (Jan. 10 1863)
The truth is that, unlike pianists and trumpeters, who merely play their instruments, we fiddlers live with ours. Joseph Wechsberg, in The Glory of the Violin (1973)
Wechsberg’s book contains numerous quotable observations on violins and violinists. Here are a few of my favorites:
“Of all musicians, string players have the most intimate relationship with their instruments, and fiddlers have an anthropomorphic attitude toward their violins. We feel they are almost human, members of our family.”
“Violins often behave as capriciously as women do. They can be sweet or bored or temperamental. On some days they sound better than on others. They may lovingly respond to your efforts or angrily reject you. They want to be wooed; if you make a mistake, they scream.”
“The violin is, at the same time, a work of art to be looked at and a musical instrument to be played on. It appeals to more of the human senses than any other work of art.”
VIOLENCE
(see also AGGRESSION and CRIME and CRUELTY and FORCE and KILLING and NONVIOLENCE and MURDER and REVOLUTION and TERRORISM and WAR)
Generally speaking, violence always arises out of impotence. It is the hope of those who have no power. Hannah Arendt, a 1967 remark, quoted in Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, Hannah Arendt (1982)
In the book. Arendt also wrote: “Violence can always destroy power; out of the barrel of a gun grows the most effective command, resulting in the most instant and perfect obedience. What never can grow out of it is power.”
The practice of violence, like all action, changes the world, but the most probable change is to a more violent world. Hannah Arendt, “On Violence,” in Crises of the Republic (1972)
In the essay, Arendt also wrote: “Violence can destroy power; it is utterly incapable of creating it.”
QUOTE NOTE: Hardin liked the saying so much that he had it framed and placed on a wall in his office.
Perhaps violence, like pornography, is some kind of evolutionary standby system, a last-resort device for throwing a wild joker into the game? J. G. Ballard, “News From the Sun,” in Myths of the Near Future (1982)
As it does with so many other stimuli, the phenomenon known as “habituation” also operates when it comes to violence. The greater the level of detachment and numbing, the more of the stimulus is needed to bring about what marketing strategists call “arousal” and, in turn, to produce whatever pleasure the activity can bring. Sissela Bok, in Mayhem: Violence As Public Entertainment (1998)
I say violence is necessary. It is as American as cherry pie. H. Rap Brown, in Washington, D. C. speech (July 27, 1967)
ERROR ALERT: Almost all internet sites abridge the observation to read simply: “Violence is as American as apple pie.” For more on Brown’s famous saying, see Robert Deis’s This Day in Quotes post.
Only reverence can restrain violence—violence against nature, violence against one another. William Sloane Coffin, “The Spiritual and the Secular,” in The Heart is a Little to the Left: Essays on Public Morality (1999)
Just as violence is the last refuge of the inarticulate, so it is also the first resort of the incompetent, the easy out for the man who is capable of expressing himself only in the most primitive and vulgar of dramatic terms. Judith Crist, in The Private Eye, the Cowboy, and the Very Naked Girl: Movies from Cleo to Clyde (1968)
Christ continued: “He leaves us with only the obscenity of violence per se—and the pornographer thereof will always be with us, in film as in any other medium. And so will his audience.”
Violence does, in truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls into the pit which he digs for another. Arthur Conan Doyle, the character Dr. Grimesby Roylott speaking, “The Speckled Band,” in Strand magazine (Feb., 1892); reprinted in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892)
Men are rewarded for learning the practice of violence in virtually any sphere of activity by money, admiration, recognition, respect, and the genuflection of others honoring their sacred and proven masculinity. Andrea Dworkin, in Pornography (1981)
Dworkin continued: “In male culture, police are heroic and so are outlaws; males who enforce standards are heroic and so are those who violate them.”
Through violence, you may solve one problem. But you sow the seeds for another. Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, in The Political Philosophy of His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama (1998; A. A. Shiromany, ed.)
At the movies, we are gradually being conditioned to accept violence as a sensual pleasure. The directors used to say they were showing us its real face and how ugly it was in order to sensitize us to its horrors. You don’t have to be very keen to see that they are now in fact desensitizing us. Pauline Kael, in Deeper Into Movies (1973)
A society that presumes a norm of violence and celebrates aggression, whether in the subway, on the football field, or in the conduct of its business, cannot help making celebrities of the people who would destroy it. Lewis H. Lapham, “Citizen Goetz,” in Harper’s magazine (March, 1985)
In violence, we forget who we are. Mary McCarthy, “Characters in Fiction,” in On the Contrary (1961)
VIRGINIA
VIRGINITY
(see also ABSTINENCE and INNOCENCE and SEX & SEXUALITY)
It is a crossing of a Rubicon in life history. Paul H. Gephard, on losing one’s virginity, quoted in Jane E. Brody, “More Coeds Find Less Guilt in Sex,” The New York Times (Dec.30, 1967)
QUOTE NOTE: There may be no more significant event in a person’s life than the first experience of sexual intercourse, and Gephard, the director of the Kinsey Institute for Sex Research at the time, chose an appropriate metaphor to describe it. The Rubicon is a river that, in ancient times, divided Italy and Gaul. In 49 B.C., Julius Caesar crossed the river in a military march against Pompey. Acting in complete defiance of the Roman Senate’s orders not to engage in any military action, Caesar famously said “the die is cast” as he ordered his troops across the river. The event gave birth to the saying Crossing the Rubicon, now a popular metaphor for taking a step in which there is no turning back.
Which people desire to lose what they possess? A sick man his fever, a tormented husband his wife, a gambler his debts, and a girl—her virginity. Franz Grillparzer, in Notebooks and Diaries (1808-1810).
In the work, Kraus also wrote: “Virginity is the ideal of those who want to deflower.”
A virgin—a frozen asset. Clare Booth Luce, the character Nancy speaking, in The Women (1936 play; film version, 1939)
QUOTE NOTE: This is the way the quotation is typically presented, but it was originally part of the play’s smart dialogue. When another character asks Nancy, “And what are you, Pet?” she replies, “What nature abhors, I’m—a virgin—a frozen asset.”
VIRTUAL REALITY
(see also ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE and INTELLIGENCE and REALITY and SIMULATION and TECHNOLOGY)
To me, virtual reality is just air guitar writ large. Robert J. Sawyer, “On Ray Kurzweil’s
The Age of Spiritual Machines,” a dialog between Robert J. Sawyer and A. K. Dewdney, in
The Ottawa Citizen (April 4, 1999)
QUOTE NOTE: In this observation, Sawyer was reprising a sentiment that appeared four years earlier in his Nebula Award-winning sci-fi novel The Terminal Experiement (1995). In the novel, the narrator describes a failed experiment this way: “Virtual reality, it turned out, was nothing but air guitar writ large.”
VIRTUE
(see also ETHICS and GOOD & BAD and GOODNESS and INTEGRITY and MORALITY and VICE and VICE & VIRTUE)
Abbott continued: “An untempted soul may be innocent, but cannot be virtuous; for virtue is the choice of right when wrong presses itself upon us and demands our choosing.”
QUOTE NOTE: See the very similar quotation from Margaret Deland below.
All sober inquirers after truth, ancient and modern, pagan and Christian, have declared that the happiness of man, as well as his dignity, consists in virtue. John Adams, in Thoughts on Government (1776)
A man must be excessively stupid, as well as uncharitable, who believes there is no virtue but on his own side, and that there are not men as honest as himself who may differ from him in political principles. Joseph Addison, in The Spectator (Dec. 8, 1711)
QUOTE NOTE: This is an early expression of a principle that went on to be known as The Golden Mean.
QUOTE NOTE: The observation has also been translated this way: “Moral virtues we acquire through practice like the arts.”
Virtue is like precious odors, most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed. Francis Bacon, “Of Adversity,” in Essays (1625)
Bacon continued: “Prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.”
Virtue is, perhaps, no more than a kind of politeness of the soul. Honoré de Balzac, in The Physiology of Marriage (1829)
Most virtue is a demand for greater seduction. Natalie Clifford Barney, quoted in “My Country ’tis of Thee,” Adam magazine, no. 299 (London, 1962)
Virtue knows that it is impossible to get on without compromise, and tunes herself, as it were, a trifle sharp to allow for an inevitable fall in playing. Samuel Butler (1835–1902), “Vice and Virtue” in The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912)
Collyer added about virtue: “It is the order, the symmetry, the interior beauty of the mind; the source of the truest pleasures, the fountain of the sublimest and most perfect happiness.”
There isn’t any virtue where there has never been any temptation. Virtue is just temptation, overcome. Margaret Deland, the character Dr. Lavendar speaking, in The Awakening of Helena Richie (1906)
QUOTE NOTE: Deland might have been inspired by a slightly earlier observation from Lyman Abott, seen above.
I think vital Religion has always suffer’d, when Orthodoxy is more regarded than Virtue. Benjamin Franklin, in letter to his parents (April 13, 1738)
Franklin continued: “And the Scripture assures me, that at the last Day, we shall not be examin’d [for] what we thought, but what we did; and our Recommendation will not be that we said Lord, Lord, but that we did GOOD to our Fellow Creatures.”
Virtue’s paths are first rugged, then pleasant. Thomas Fuller, M.D., in Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs (1732)
Virtue, sir, consists in actions, and not in words. William Godwin, the character Laura Denison speaking, in Caleb Williams (1794)
QUOTE NOTE: While the novel has become known as simply Caleb Williams, it was originally published in three volumes under the title Things as They Are: Or, the Adventures of Caleb Williams. See the Lord Tennyson entry below for a more elegant expression of the idea.
The virtue which requires to be ever guarded is scarce worth the sentinel. Oliver Goldsmith, the title character and narrator, Dr. Charles Primrose, speaking, in The Vicar of Wakefield (1766)
Whether the succeeding generation is to be more virtuous than their predecessors, I cannot say; but I am sure they will have more worldly wisdom, and enough, I hope, to know that honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom. Thomas Jefferson, in letter to Nathaniel Macon (Jan. 12, 1819)
QUOTE NOTE: Most internet sites and quotation anthologies present only the concluding phrase: “Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.”
Assume a virtue, if you have it not. William Shakespeare, the title character speaking, in Hamlet (1601)
QUOTE NOTE: This is the loveliest expression of a thought that had been expressed previously by others. For one example, see the William Godwin entry above.
The weakest of all weak things is a virtue that has not been tested in the fire. Mark Twain, the voice of the narrator, in “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg,” Harper’s Monthly (Dec., 1899); reprinted in The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories (1900)
Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder. George Washington, quoted in Maxims of Washington: Political, Social, Moral, and Religious (1854; John Frederick Schroeder, ed.)
QUOTE NOTE: Schroeder’s book originally presented the observation without source information; it came in a letter to Maj. Gen. Robert Howe (Aug. 17, 1779)
Virtue is the roughest way,/But proves at night a bed of down. Henry Wotten, “Upon the Sudden Restraint of the Earl of Somerset”(written c. 1625), in Poems by Sir Henry Wotton (1843; Alexander Dyce, ed.)
VIRTUOSITY
(see also ABILITY and COMPETENCE and EXCELLENCE and SKILL and TALENT)
In art as in lovemaking, heartfelt ineptitude has its appeal and so does heartless skill, but what you want is passionate virtuosity. John Barth, quoted in Charles B. Harris, Passionate Virtuosity: The Fiction of John Barth (1983)
My feeling about technique in art is that it has about the same value as technique in love-making. That is to say, on the one hand, heartfelt ineptitude has its appeal and, on the other hand, so does heartless skill; but what you want is passionate virtuosity. John Barth, “The Literature of Exhaustion,” in Atlantic Monthly (Aug., 1967)
QUOTE NOTE: The phrase passionate virtuosity, which Barth offered on a number of occasions over the years, became so singularly associated with him that Charles B. Harris selected it as the title of his 1983 critical study of Barth’s work (the Harris book also presented Barth’s most quotable version of the sentiment). Barth introduced the idea in an August, 1967 Atlantic Monthly article (“The Literature of Exhaustion”), in which he wrote: “My feeling about technique in art is that it has about the same value as technique in love-making. That is to say, on the one hand, heartfelt ineptitude has its appeal and, on the other hand, so does heartless skill; but what you want is passionate virtuosity.” He reprised the sentiment in his 1972 novel Chimera, where he had The Genie say to another character: “Heartfelt ineptitude has its appeal, Dunyazade; so does heartless skill. But what you want is passionate virtuosity.”
QUOTE NOTE: Barth reprised the sentiment in his 1972 novel Chimera, where he had The Genie say to another character: “Heartfelt ineptitude has its appeal, Dunyazade; so does heartless skill. But what you want is passionate virtuosity.” The phrase went on to become so singularly associated with Barth that Charles B. Harris selected it as the title of his 1983 critical study of the author’s works: Passionate Virtuosity: The Fiction of John Barth.
VIRUS
(see also AIDS and BACTERIA & BACTERIOLOGISTS and DISEASE and DOCTORS and EPIDEMIC and HEALING and ILLNESS and INFECTION and INFLUENZA and MEDICINE and SICKNESS)
and I swear sometimes/when I put my head to his chest/I can hear the virus humming/like a refrigerator. Mark Doty, referring to the AIDS virus, in the poem “Faith,” in Atlantis: Poems (1995)
QUOTE NOTE: For the story behind the quote, see the Doty entry in AIDS.
A virus is a piece of bad news wrapped in a protein. Peter Medawar, “Viruses,” in National Geographic (July, 1994)
(see also metaphors involving ANIMALS, BASEBALL, BATHING & BATHS, BIRTH, BOXING & PRIZEFIGHTING, CANCER, DANCING, DARKNESS, DEATH, DISEASE, FOOTBALL, FRUIT, GARDENING, HEART, JOURNEYS, LIGHT & LIGHTNESS, MOTHERS, NAUTICAL, PARTS OF SPEECH, PATHS, PLANTS, PUNCTUATION, ROAD, NAUTICAL, SUN & MOONS, VEGETABLES, and WEIGHTS & MEASURES)
A satirist is a man whose flesh creeps so at the ugly and the savage and the incongruous aspects of society that he has to express them as brutally and nakedly as possible to get relief. He seeks to put his grisly obsession into expressive form the way a bacteriologist seeks to isolate a virus. John Dos Passos, from “Satire as a Way of Seeing,” in Occasions and Protests (1964)
Great writers arrive among us like new diseases—threatening, powerful, impatient for patients to pick up their virus, irresistible. Craig Raine, quoted in the Independent on Sunday (Nov. 18, 1990)
VISION
(includes ENVISION; see also DREAMS and EYES and GOALS & GOAL-SETTING and LEADERSHIP and MISSIONS & MISSION STATEMENTS and PERCEPTION and SENSES and SIGHT & SEEING)
Champions aren’t made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them—a desire, a dream, a vision. Muhammad Ali, in The Greatest: My Own Story (1975; with Richard Durham)
Ali continued: “They have to have the last-minute stamina, they have to be a little faster, they have to have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill.”
QUOTE NOTE: Allen was an English philosophical writer who wrote a number of popular inspirational books, including As a Man Thinketh, a classic in self-help literature (the title was inspired by the biblical passage, “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” The book (in reality, a lengthy essay) heavily influenced Dale Carnegie, Napoleon Hill, and a generation of later writers. he preceded the thought above by writing: “Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become.”
He who cherishes a beautiful vision, a lofty ideal in his heart, will one day realize it. James Allen, in As a Man Thinketh (1903)
When feminism exploded into my life, it gave me a vision of the world totally different from everything I had ever assumed or hoped. Dorothy Allison, in Skin: Talking About Sex, Class, & Literature (1994)
We are all visionaries, and what we see is our soul in things. Henri-Frédéric Amiel, entry in Journal Intime (Feb. 5, 1853)
Love blurs your vision; but after it recedes, you can see more clearly than ever. Margaret Atwood, a reflection of narrator and protagonist Elaine Risley, in Cat’s Eye (1988)
Risley continued: “It’s like the tide going out, revealing whatever’s been thrown away and sunk: broken bottles, old old gloves, rusting pop cans, nibbled fishbodies, bones. This is not the kind of thing you see if you sit in the darkness with open eyes, not knowing the future. The ruin you’ve made.”
The capacity to create a compelling vision and translate it into action and sustain it. Warren Bennis, his definition of leadership, in Director magazine (April, 1991)
Imagination pictures the thing you desire. Vision idealizes it. It reaches beyond the thing that is, into the conception of what can be. Imagination gives you the picture; vision gives you the impulse to make the picture your own by directing your Creative Force into it. Robert Collier, in Riches Within Your Reach! (1947)
Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations. Peter Drucker, in Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Challenges (1973)
The inner eye of vision can see what isn’t yet there, can reach beyond present circumstances, and can see what, up to that point, has never been there. Robert Fritz, in The Path of Least Resistance (1984)
Fritz continued: “It is truly an incredible human faculty that is able to see beyond the present and the past, and from the unknown conceive something not hitherto in existence.”
Our course of action will be more compelling if guided by a positive vision, a guiding image of what things could be like one day. Daniel Goleman, in A Force for Good: The Dalai Lama’s Vision for Our World (2015)
Goleman continued: “Considering what life could be like invites originality, new ideas, innovations.”
Imagination comes from yourself and can deceive you, but vision is a gift from outside yourself—like light striking on your closed eyelids and lifting them to see what’s really there. Elizabeth Goudge, the character David speaking, in Pilgrim’s Inn (1948)
If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. George Eliot, the voice of the narrator, in Middlemarch (serialized 1871–72; published as stand-alone novel in 1874)
The narrator continued: “As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity.”
Every vision is a joke until the first man accomplishes it. Once realized, it becomes commonplace. Robert H. Goddard, quoted in Milton Lehman, This High Man: The Live of Robert H. Goddard (1963)
A belief is a lever that, once pulled, moves almost everything else in a person’s life. Sam Harris, in The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason ((2005)
Harris went on to add: “Your beliefs define your vision of the world; they dictate your behavior; they determine your emotional responses to other human beings.” And a little later in the book, he wrote: “Every belief is a fount of action in potentia.”
The vision must be followed by the venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps—we must step up the stairs. Vance Havner, quoted in Douglas M. White, Vance Havner, Journey from Jugtown: A Biography (1977)
ERROR ALERT: All over the internet, this quotation is mistakenly attributed to Vaclav Havel, the writer and former president of the Czech Republic. Note that the observation is also an example of chiasmus.
The very essence of leadership is you have to have a vision. It’s got to be a vision you articulate clearly and forcefully on every occasion. You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet. Theodore Hesburgh, quoted in Ezra Bowen, “His Trumpet Was Never Uncertain,” Time magazine (May 18, 1987)
The idea is to seek a vision that gives you purpose in life and then to implement that vision. Lewis P. Johnson, “Seeking the Spiritual Path,” in Parabola magazine (Feb., 1987)
Johnson added: “The vision by itself is one half, one part, of a process. It implies the necessity of living that vision, otherwise the vision will sink back into itself.”
Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Without, everything seems discordant; only within does it coalesce into unity. Who looks outside dreams; who looks inside awakes. Carl Jung, in letter to Fanny Bowditch (Oct. 22, 1916); reprinted in Gerhard Adler, C. G. Jung: Letters 1906-1950, Vol. I (1973)
ERROR ALERT: Most internet sites present the following abridged version of this quotation: “Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens.”
Now man cannot live without some vision of himself. But still less can he live with a vision that is not true to his inner experience and inner feeling. D. H. Lawrence, “The Risen Lord,” in Everyman magazine (Oct. 3, 1929); reprinted in D. H. Lawrence: Late Essays and Articles, Vol. 2 (2004; James T. Boulton, ed.)
When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less important whether or not I am unafraid. Audre Lorde, in The Cancer Journals (1980)
ERROR ALERT: Mistaken phrasings of this quotation appear all over the internet, with many saying “When I care to be powerful” and ending with “whether I am afraid.”
Our visions are essential to create that which has never been, and we must each learn to use all of who we are to achieve those visions. Audre Lorde, in interview with Charles H. Rowell (Aug. 29, 1990), reported in Callaloo: A Journal of African-American and African Arts and Letters (Winter, 2000)
To be obsessed with some vision and to have the continuous opportunity of working to realize that vision could be looked upon as God’s greatest gift to anyone. Henry Moore, quoted in Roger Berthoud, Life of Henry Moore (2003)
Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision. Ayn Rand, the character Howard Roark speaking to the jury, in The Fountainhead (1943)
Roark continued: “Their goals differed, but they all had this in common: that the step was first, the road new, the vision unborrowed, and the response they received—hatred. The great creators—the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors—stood alone against the men of their time.”
To see clearly is poetry, prophecy, and religion—all in one. John Ruskin, in Modern Painters, Vol. 3 (1856)
Ruskin preceded the observation by writing: “The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something, and tell what it saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see.”
Schopenhauer continued: “This is an error of the intellect as inevitable as that error of the eye which lets us fancy that on the horizon heaven and earth meet.”
Life is a series of near misses. But a lot of what we ascribe to luck is not luck at all. It’s seizing the day and accepting responsibility for your future. It’s seeing what other people don’t see and pursuing that vision, no matter who tells you not to. Howard Schultz, in Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time (1997; with Dori Jones Yang)
A bit later in the book, Schultz wrote: “No great achievement happens by luck.”
I would give all the wealth of the world, and all the deeds of all the heroes, for one true vision. Henry David Thoreau, in A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849)
Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion. Jack Welch, quoted in Noel M. Tichy and Ram Charan, “Speed, Simplicity, and Self-Confidence: An Interview with Jack Welch,” Harvard Business Review (Sep.-Oct.,1989)
No man that does not see visions will ever realize any high hope or undertake any high enterprise. Woodrow T. Wilson, in address at Convention Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (May 10, 1915)
QUOTE NOTE: President Wilson was speaking to a group of naturalized Americans who had just taken the oath of U. S. citizenship. He preceded the foregoing thought by saying: “You dreamed dreams of what America was to be, and I hope you brought the dreams with you.” And he concluded it this way: “Just because you brought dreams with you, America is more likely to realize dreams such as you brought. You are enriching us if you came expecting us to be better than we are.”
Wharton continued: “That new, that personal, vision is attained only by looking long enough at the object represented to make it the writer’s own; and the mind which would bring this secret gem to fruition must be able to nourish it with an accumulated wealth of knowledge and experience.”
Create the highest, grandest vision possible for your life because you become what you believe. Oprah Winfrey, in
Commencement Address at Wellesley College (May 30, 1997)
VISITORS & VISITING
(including VISITS; see also COMPANY and GUESTS and HOSPITALITY HOSTS & HOSTING and MANNERS)
Visiting is a pleasure; being visited is usually a mixed or ambivalent joy. Barbara Holland, in Endangered Pleasures: In Defense of Naps, Bacon, Martinis, Profanity, and Other Indulgences (1995)
Holland went on to add: “The visitor can always go home; the visitee is already home, trapped like a rat in a drainpipe.”
Martin went on to add: “All visitors everywhere are supposed to make plans to depart if they observe their hosts visibly wilting or in pain, but this is especially true at hospitals.”
My father used to say,/“Superior people never make long visits. Marianne Moore, “Silence” (1921), in Selected Poems (1935)
Now what is a guest? A thing of a day! A person who disturbs your routine and interferes with important concerns. Why should any one be grateful for company? Why should time and money be lavished on visitors? They come. You overwork yourself. They go. You are glad of it. You return the visit, because it’s the only way to have back at them. Gene Stratton-Porter, the character David speaking, in The Harvester (1911)
The relationship of host and guest has always been a difficult one, hedged about with practical and spiritual problems. Jan Struther, “Snillocs,” in A Pocketful of Pebbles (1946)
VISUALIZATION
(see also ACHIEVEMENT and AUTOSUGGESTION and CREATIVITY and IMAGINATION and INVENTION and THINKING & THINKERS and [Positive] THINKING and VISION)
Adams continued: “If you don’t visualize a picture before you make it you might as well use a purely automatic camera. They are marvelous devices for their purposes but they cannot create for you, and that’s not photography for me.”
Visualization is simply the creation of a strong mental image of the thing desired, the perfecting it each day until it becomes almost as clear as an existing material thing. William Walker Atkinson, in Mind-Power: The Secret of Mental Magic (1912)
Extraordinary people visualize not what is possible or probable, but rather what is impossible. And by visualizing the impossible, they begin to see it as possible. Cherie Carter-Scott, in Negaholics: How to Overcome Negativity and Turn Your Life Around (1999)
Whatever you can visualize—and BELIEVE in—you can accomplish. Whatever you can see as yours in your mind’s eye, you can get. Robert Collier, in Riches Within Your Reach: The Law of the Higher Potential (1947)
Visualization, that seeing of that which is not yet, which is not actually before us, as yet, is essential for the attainment of all the good that man may aspire to. Tehilla Lichtenstein, “God in the Silence,” in Jewish Science Interpreter (1947, vol. 21, no. 9); quoted in Ellen M. Umansky and Dianne Ashton, eds., Four Centuries of Jewish Women’s Spirituality (1992)
Schwartz continued: “A big thinker always visualizes what can be done in the future. He isn’t stuck with the present.”
VITALITY
(see also CHEERFUL and EBULLIENT and EXUBERANCE and MERRY and SCINTILLATING and VIBRANCY and VIVACITY & VIVACIOUSNESS)
Vitality…that dangerous divine gift she had in such abundance, the one gift that no art could counterfeit, and the one the gods give least often and with least wish to be kind. Storm Jameson, in Three Kingdoms (1926)
VIVACITY & VIVACIOUSNESS
(see also CHEERFUL and EBULLIENT and EXUBERANCE and MERRY and SCINTILLATING and VIBRANCY and VITALITY)
As vivacity is the gift of women, gravity is that of men. Joseph Addison, in The Spectator (July 27, 1711)
VOCABULARY
(see also LANGUAGE and WORDS)
I want my vocabulary to have a very large range, but the words must be alive. James Agee, in letter to Father James Harold Flye (Nov. 19, 1930); reprinted in Letters of James Agee to Father Flye (1962)
Algeo began: “A community is known by the language it keeps, and its words chronicle the times. Every aspect of the life of a people is reflected in the words they use to talk about themselves and the world around them. As their world changes—through invention, discovery, revolution, evolution, or personal transformation—so does their language.”
A large vocabulary is like an artist having a large palette of colors. You don’t have to use all those colors in a single painting but it helps to have just the right shade when you need it. Anu Garg, in A.Word.A.Day e-newsletter (Jan. 12, 2015)
Garg continued: “Each word brings its own shade of meaning. Each word helps us to describe our world just the way we see it.” For a similar palette metaphor, see the Jim Rohn entry in WORDS.
There is something in the quality of the French mind to which I have always felt a reluctant kinship. They are the only people I know who can leap into an enormous vocabulary of words and beat them up with the wings of their spirit into a fine hysterical eloquence. Corra Harris, in As A Woman Thinks (1925)
The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary. James D. Nicoll, “The King’s English,” a Usenet Post (May 15, 1990)
QUOTE NOTE: It’s rare for an internet post to take on a life of its own, but that’s exactly what happened with this colorful metaphor from Nicoll, a Canadian book and game reviewer. His observation has been repeated countless times (often with slight changes in the wording) and is often misattributed to Booker T. Washington, Ambrose Bierce, Terry Pratchett, and others. To see his original Usenet post (which misspelled—and later corrected—the word rifle), go to: James D. Nicoll.
Vocabulary enables us to interpret and to express. If you have a limited vocabulary, you will also have a limited vision and a limited future. Jim Rohn, in a FaceBook post (April 2, 2016)
One forgets words as one forgets names. One’s vocabulary needs constant fertilizing or it will die. Evelyn Waugh, diary entry (Dec. 25, 1962); in The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh (1995; Michael Davie, ed.)
VOCATION
(see also AVOCATION and CALLING and CAREER and EMPLOYMENT and OCCUPATION and PROFESSION and WORK)
ERROR ALERT: Almost all internet sites attribute this quotation to Friedrich Nietzsche, but there is no evidence he ever wrote such a thing.
Vocations which we wanted to pursue, but didn’t, bleed, like colors, on the whole of our existence. Honoré de Balzac, “Scènes de la vie Parisienee,” in La Maison Nucingen (1838)
Emerson continued: “He has faculties silently inviting him thither to endless exertion. He is like a ship in a river; he runs against obstructions on every side but one; on that side all obstruction is taken away, and he sweeps serenely over a deepening channel into an infinite sea.”
ERROR ALERT: Many internet sites mistakenly present the quotation this way: “Each man has his own vocation; his talent is his call.”
The high prize of life, the crowning fortune of a man, is to be born with a bias to some pursuit which finds him in employment and happiness—whether it be to make baskets, or broadswords, or canals, or songs. Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Considerations by the Way,” in The Conduct of Life (1860)
One should not search for an abstract meaning of life. Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life to carry out a concrete assignment which demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated. Thus, everyone's task is as unique as is his specific opportunity to implement it. Viktor Frankl, in Man’s Search For Meaning (1946; English version, 1959)
My object is living is to unite/My avocation with my vocation/As my two eyes make one in sight. Robert Frost, in “Two Tramps in Mud Time,” Saturday Review of Literature (Oct. 6, 1934)
To find our unique niche in that Always Larger Life is what we mean by “vocation.” Richard Rohr,
“Let Your Life Speak,” daily meditation blog (May 27, 2018)
Rohr preceded the thought by writing: “Your life is not about you. You are about a larger thing called Life. You are not your own. You are an instance of a universal and eternal pattern. Life is living itself in you. The myriad forms of life in the universe are merely parts of the One Life—that many of us call “God.” You and I don’t have to figure it all out, fix everything, or do life perfectly by ourselves. All we have to do is participate in this One Life.” Rohr got the wonderful metaphorical title of his blog post from a 2000 book by Parker J. Palmer: Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation (Palmer himself described it as “an old Quaker saying”).
VOICE
(see also COMMUNICATION and ELOQUENCE and LANGUAGE and SILENCE and SPEECH & SPEAKING and TALK & TALKING and TONGUE and WORDS)
QUOTE NOTE: Some quotation anthologies cite Carnets Inédits as the source, but that is simply the French term for an unpublished work.
All the intelligence and talent in the world can’t make a singer. The voice is a wild thing. It can’t be bred in captivity. Willa Cather, the character Ray Kennedy speaking, in The Song of the Lark (1915)
The voice has evolved as the medium of communication for human beings, but it communicates far more than words: we are all adept at reading between the lines when people speak. Jennifer Coates, in a 2006 issue of the Times Literary Supplement (specific issue undetermined)
Coates preceded the thought by writing: “Whether we want to or not, the minute we open our mouths we give clues about where we grew up, about our gender, about our ethnicity, about our social class, even about our sexual orientation.”
I have one thing in common with the emerging black nations of Africa: We both have voices, and we are discovering what we can do with them. Miriam Makeba, a 1961 remark, in Makeba: My Story (1987; with James Hall)
A loud voice is not always angry; a soft voice not always to be dismissed; and a well-placed silence can be the indisputable last word. Gloria Naylor, “Finding Our Voice: 11 Black Women Writers Speak,” in a 1995 issue of Essence magazine (specific issue undetermined)
Your voice dries up if you don’t use it. Patti Page, quoted in Bernard Weinraub, “Patti Page, Proving That Simple Songs Endure,” The New York Times (Aug. 12, 2003)
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice. William Shakespeare, the character Polonious speaking, in Hamlet (1599)
My voice had a long, nonstop career. It deserves to be put to bed with quiet and dignity, not yanked out every once in a while to see if it can still do what it used to do. It can’t. Beverly Sills, in a 1983 issue of Time magazine (specific issue undetermined)
VOTING & VOTERS
(includes SUFFRAGE; see also BALLOTS and CITIZENS and DEMOCRACY and ELECTIONS and GOVERNMENT & THE STATE and POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS and POLITICIANS and POLITICS)
When the political columnists say “every thinking man” they mean themselves, and when candidates appeal to “every intelligent voter” they mean everybody who is going to vote for them. Franklin P. Adams, in Nods and Becks (1944)
Suffrage is the pivotal right. Susan B. Anthony, “The Status of Women: Past, Present, and Future,” in Arena magazine (May, 1897)
ERROR ALERT: This observation is mistakenly attributed to Mark Twain on countless Internet sites, but he never said anything like it. See the similar observation below.
QUOTE NOTE: This saying began showing up on t-shirts in the 1990s. In 2000, Jim Hightower tweaked the saying in a book title: If the Gods Had Meant us to Vote, They Would Have Given us Candidates. And in a 2001 Tonight Show monologue, Jay Leno offered an improved version of the thought when he concluded it with the phrase “better candidates.”
Politics is not just about voting one day every four years. Politics is the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the road we walk on. Unita Blackwell, in Barefootin’: Life Lessons From the Road to Freedom (2006; with JoAnne Prichard Morris)
The system which admits the unworthy to the vote provided they are men, and shuts out the worthy provided they are women, is so unjust and illogical that its perpetuation is a sad reflection upon American thinking. Carrie Chapman Catt, in Woman Suffrage by Federal Constitutional Amendment (1917)
The vote is a power, a weapon of offense and defense, a prayer. Carrie Chapman Catt, a 1920 remark, quoted in Mary Gray Peck, Carrie Chapman Catt (1948)
Chapman continued: “You may preach to a congregation by the year and not affect its thought because it is not called upon for definite action. But throw your subject into a campaign and it becomes a challenge.”
The average man votes below himself; he votes with half a mind or a hundredth part of one. A man ought to vote with the whole of himself, as he worships or gets married. G. K. Chesterton, “A Glimpse of My Country,” in Tremendous Trifles (1909)
Chesterton continued: “A man ought to vote with his head and heart, his soul and stomach, his eye for faces and his ear for music; also (when sufficiently provoked) with his hands and feet.” He went on to conclude the thought this way: “The question is not so much whether only a minority of the electorate votes. The point is that only a minority of the voter votes.”
My present attitude toward politics as it is practiced in the United States: it is a beautiful fraud that has been imposed on the people for years, whose practitioners exchange gilded promises for the most valuable thing their victims own, their votes.” Shirley Chisholm, in Unbought and Unbossed (1970)
At the bottom of all the tributes paid to democracy is the little man, walking into the little booth, with a little pencil, making a little cross on a little bit of paper—no amount of rhetoric or voluminous discussion can possibly diminish the overwhelming importance of that point. Winston Churchill, in House of Commons speech (Oct. 31, 1944)
Calling out people for not voting, what experts term “public shaming,” can prod someone to cast a ballot. Charles Duhigg, “Campaigns Mine Personal Lives to Get Out Vote,” in The New York Times (Oct. 13, 2012)
Hell, I never vote for anybody. I always vote against. W. C. Fields, quoted in Robert Lewis Taylor, W. C. Fields, His Follies, His Fortunes (1949)
Just as buildings in California have a greater need to be earthquake proofed, places where there is greater racial polarization in voting have a greater need for prophylactic measures to prevent purposeful race discrimination. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in a 2013 dissent to the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision striking down part of 1965 Voting Rights Act
Let me confess that I have a record. I am a political recidivist. An incorrigible, repeat voter. A career lever-pusher. My electoral rap sheet is as long as your arm. Ellen Goodman, in her syndicated column Boston Globe (Nov. 5, 1996)
Goodman continued: “Over the course of three decades, I have voted for presidents and school board members. I have voted in high hopes and high dudgeon. I have voted in favor of candidates and merely against their opponents. I have voted for propositions written with such complexity that I needed Noam Chomsky to deconstruct their meaning. I have been a single-issue voter and a marginal voter. I have even voted for people who ran unopposed. Hold an election and I’ll be there.”
This was one of “Ten Reasons Why I Vote.” Some others were:
“I vote because when I was a kid, voting was grown-up.”
“I vote because women spent over a century fighting for ‘the cause’ so I could vote.”
“I vote because Election Day is for me a national day of stillness when the conflict and the attack ads suddenly halt and the whole country waits to see what citizens will decide.”
“Without blushing, I vote because it’s what small-d democracy is about. Because there are places where people fight for generations and stand for hours to cast a ballot knowing what we ought to remember: That it makes a difference. Not always a big difference. Not always an immediate difference. But a difference.”
I never vote for anybody, I always vote against. W. C. Fields, quoted in Robert Lewis Taylor, W. C. Fields, His Follies, His Fortunes (1949)
Urging people to “get out and vote” who have not taken the time to study the issues or the candidates, represents subversion of democracy more than support of it; for the larger the number of ignorant persons who vote, the less the chance of a rational result. Syndey J. Harris, in For the Time Being (1972):
“A straw vote,” says I, “only shows which way the hot air blows.” O. Henry, the protagonist Mr. Bowers speaking in the short story “A Ruler of Men,” in Rolling Stones (1913)
Urging people to “get out and vote” who have not taken the time to study the issues or the candidates, represents subversion of democracy more than support of it; for the larger the number of ignorant persons who vote, the less chance of a rational result. Sydney J. Harris, in For the Time Being (1972)
If you are part of a society that votes, then do so. There may be no candidates and no measures you want to vote for, but there are certain to be ones you want to vote against. In case of doubt, vote against. Robert A. Heinlein, an entry in “More From The Notebooks of Lazarus Long,” in Time Enough for Love (1973)
Long continued: “By this rule you will rarely go wrong. If this is too blind for your taste, consult some well-meaning fool (there is always one around) and ask his advice. Then vote the other way. This enables you to be a good citizen (if such is your wish) without spending the enormous amount of time on it that truly intelligent exercise of franchise requires.”
If your vote didn’t matter, they wouldn’t try so hard to take it from you. Samuel L. Jackson, in a 2020
political advertisement for the Biden-Harris campaign
I have never had a vote, and I have raised hell all over this country. You don’t need a vote to raise hell! You need convictions and a voice! Mother Jones, quoted in Mary Field Parton, The Autobiography of Mother Jones (1925)
The vote, I thought, means nothing to women. We should be armed. Erica Jong, a reflection of protagonist Isadora Wing, in Fear of Flying (1973)
QUOTE NOTE: In her 2012 memoir Country Girl: A Memoir, Edna O’Brien was almost certainly inspired by this observation when she wrote: “It’s not the vote women need, we should be armed.”
In the past, we needed to worry about uninformed voters, those who didn’t know much about politics. These days, we need to worry about the much more dangerous misinformed voters who are often wrong, never uncertain. Brian Klaas, “‘Knowingness’ and the Politics of Ignorance,” in a Garden of Forking Paths blogpost (May 12, 2023)
Klaas preceded the thought by writing: “Deliberate ignorance has become one of the biggest threats to our fragile democracies.”
No man has the right to be ignorant. In a country like this, ignorance is a crime. Louis L’Amour, the character Tell Sackett speaking, in Sackett: A Novel (1961)
Sackett continued: “If a man is going to vote, if he’s going to take part in his country and his government, then it’s up to him to understand.”
The effort to calculate exactly what the voters want at each particular moment leaves out of account the fact that when they are troubled the thing the voters most want is to be told what to want. Walter Lippmann, “The Bogey of Public Opinion,” in Vanity Fair (Dec., 1931)
Not voting is voting to hand your power over, to throw it away and give it to somebody whose interests are going to be harmful to your own. Eric Liu, “Why a Decentralized Swarm of Resistance is the Best Way to Contain Trump”, Washington Post (April 25, 2017)
Any person who does not vote is failing to serve the cause of freedom—his own freedom, his people’s freedom, and his country’s freedom. Constance Baker Motley, in keynote address at 1965 convention of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Motley introduced the thought by saying: “A Negro who does not vote is ungrateful to those who have already died in the fight for freedom.”
QUOTATION CAUTION: The same quotation first appeared four years earlier (without any source information), in a 1951 issue of The Defender magazine. In Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (2010), the editors at The Library of Congress say of this quotation: “Unverified in Nathan’s works.” The observation has been repeated in many slightly varying forms, as when A Guide to the 99th Congress (1985) quoted U. S. Secretary of the Treasury William E. Simon as saying: “Bad politicians are sent to Washington by good people who don’t vote.”
When moral principles, rather than persons, are candidates for power, to vote is to perform a moral duty, and not to vote is to neglect a duty. Thomas Paine, in the Trenton [New Jersey] True-American (April, 1803)
Real men vote…because not bothering to vote reveals a kind of moral lethargy, an unforgivable passivity, and an adolescent nihilism. Tony Parsons, “Voting is the Most Important Thing a Man Can Do,” GQ (Gentleman's Quarterly) magazine (April 24, 2017)
I do strive to think well of my fellow man, but no amount of striving can give me confidence in the wisdom of a congressional vote. Agnes Repplier, quoted in Emma Repplier, Agnes Repplier (1957)
Voting, in public, with history in the balance, concentrates the mind and the conscience. James Reston, Jr. (son of James “Scotty” Reston, in The Los Angeles Times (May 31, 2019)
Read to children. Vote. And never buy anything from a man who’s selling fear. Mary Doria Russell, a reflection of narrator and protagonist Agnes Shanklin, a middle-aged Ohio schoolteacher, as she thinks about what advice she might give to people, in Dreamers of the Day (2008)
Perhaps America will one day go fascist democratically, by popular vote. William L. Shirer, quoted in The New York Times (Dec. 29, 1969)
QUOTE NOTE: Steinem reprised this sentiment many times over the years. In My Life on the Road (2015), for example, she wrote: “All my years of campaigning have given me one clear message: Voting isn’t the most we can do, but it is the least. To have a democracy, you have to want one.”
It’s not the voting that’s democracy, it’s the counting. Tom Stoppard, the character Dotty, quoting her friend Archie, in Jumpers (1972)
All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right or wrong, with moral questions. Henry David Thoreau, in “Resistance to Civil Government,” in Aesthetic Papers journal (May, 1849); reprinted as title essay in Civil Disobedience: And Other Essays (1849)
In the essay, Thoreau went on to write: “Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority.”
In reality, there is no such thing as not voting: you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some Diehard’s vote. David Foster Wallace, in McCain’s Promise: Aboard the Straight Talk Express (2006)
QUOTE NOTE: In his role as Rolling Stone magazine’s designated reporter to John McCain’s first presidential campaign in 2000, Wallace preceded the observation by penning this message to Young Voters,: “If you are bored and disgusted by politics and don’t bother to vote, you are in effect voting for the entrenched Establishments of the two major parties, who please rest assured are not dumb, and who are keenly aware that it is in their interests to keep you disgusted and bored and cynical and to give you every possible psychological reason to stay at home . . . on primary day. By all means stay at home if you want, but don’t bullshit yourself that you’re not voting.”
We must get rid of the habit of classing all women together politically and thinking of the “woman’s vote” as one and indivisible. Laura Ingalls Wilder, a 1919 remark, quoted in Stephen W. Hines, Little House in the Ozarks: A Laura Ingalls Wilder Sampler, The Rediscovered Writings (1991)
Voters don’t decide issues, they decide who will decide issues. George Will, in his regular Newsweek column (March 8, 1976)
VULGARITY
(see also COARSENESS and COURTESY and CRUDENESS and ETIQUETTE and MANNERS and OBSCENITY and PROFANITY and REFINEMENT and RUDENESS)
Vulgarity is no substitute for wit. Julian Fellowes, the Dowager Countess (Maggie Smith) scolding Lady Sybil, in Downton Abby (Season 3, Episode 2)
QUOTE NOTE: The Dowager Countess is reprimanding Lady Sybil for jokingly suggesting to Lady Edith that she should conserve her strength for her upcoming wedding night.
VULNERABILITY
(includes invulnerability; see also AUTHENTICITY and FEAR and INTIMACY and OPENNESS)
Vulnerability is the core, the heart, the center, of meaningful human experience. Brené Brown, in Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead (2012)
In the book, Brown also wrote: “Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity.”
When I look at narcissism through the vulnerability lens, I see the shame-based fear of being ordinary. I see the fear of never feeling extraordinary enough to be noticed, to be lovable, to belong, or to cultivate a sense of purpose. Brené Brown, in Daring Greatly (2012)
vulnerability—the willingness to show up and be seen with no guarantee of outcome—is the only path to more love, belonging, and joy. Brené Brown, IN Rising Strong: The Reckoning, the Rumble, the Revolution (2015)
Lamott continued: “Don’t worry about appearing sentimental. Worry about being unavailable; worry about being absent or fraduluent. Risk being unliked. Tell the truth as you understand it. If you’re a writer, you have a moral obligation to do this. And it is a revolutionary act—truth is always subversive.”
L’Engle preceded the thought by writing:“When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability.”
To mourn is to be extraordinarily vulnerable. It is to be at the mercy of inside feelings and outside events in a way most of us have not been since early childhood. Christian McEwen, “The Color of the Water, the Yellow of the Field,” in Christian McEwen and Sue O'Sullivan, Out the Other Side (1988)
I feel terribly vulnerable and “not-myself” when I’m not writing. Sylvia Plath, in a 1957 letter, in Letters Home (1973; Aurelia Schober Plath, ed.)
Shain continued: “So people often need to renew their anger a long time after the cause of it has died, because it is a protection against helplessness and emptiness just like howling in the night. And it makes them feel less vulnerable for a little while.”
A refugee is not just someone lacking in money and everything else. A refugee is vulnerable to the slightest touch: he has lost his country, his friends, his earthly belongings. He is a stranger, sick at heart. Maria Trapp, in A Family on Wheels (1959; with Ruth T. Murdoch)
Trapp continued: “He is suspicious; he feels misunderstood. If people smile, he thinks they ridicule him; if they look serious, he thinks they don't like him. He is a full-grown tree in the dangerous process of being transplanted, with the chance of possibly not being able to take root in the new soil.”
