Problems & Solutions - LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN

If this stone won't budge at present and is wedged in, move some of the other stones round it first.

LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN (1889 - 1951), 1940, Culture and Value, 1977, tr. Peter Winch, 1980.

Presidents - REXFORD G. TUGWELL

It was part of [Franklin D. Roosevelt's] conception of his role that he should never show exhaustion, boredom, or irritation.

REXFORD G. TUGWELL (1891 - 1979), Economist and undersecretary of agriculture, In Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Age of Roosevelt: The Coming of the New Deal, 35.2, 1959.

Preparedness - LOUIS PASTEUR

Where observation is concerned, chance favors only the prepared mind.

LOUIS PASTEUR (1822 - 1895), Address given at the inauguration of the science faculty, University of Lille, Douai (France), 7 December 1854.

Prayer - MUHAMMAD

To spend more time in learning is better than spending more time in praying.

MUHAMMAD (A.D. 570? - 632), The Sayings of Muhammad, 277, tr. Abdullah Al-Suhrawardy, 1941.

Popularity - OLIVER CROMWELL

Anonymous: Are you not proud that so many came to see the chosen of the Lord enter in triumph?
Cromwell: Three times as many would have come to see me hanged.

OLIVER CROMWELL (1599 - 1658), Format adapted. An exchange recounted by Sigmund Freud in reference to his own popularity. In Hanns Sachs, Freud: Master and Friend, 7, 1944.

Persuasion - ADAM SMITH

We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our necessities but of their advantages.

ADAM SMITH (1723 - 1790), The Wealth of Nations, 1.2, 1776.

Personality - CARL G. JUNG

Without necessity nothing budges, the human personality least of all. It is tremendously conservative, not to say torpid. Only acute necessity is able to rouse it. The developing personality obeys no caprice, no command, no insight, only brute necessity.

CARL G. JUNG (1875 - 1961), Title essay, 1934, The Development of Personality, tr. R. F. C Hull, 1954.

Perfection - JESUS

You must be perfect - just as your Father in heaven is perfect.

JESUS (A. D. 1st cent.), Matthew, 5:48.

Optimism - COLIN I. POWELL

Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.

COLIN I. POWELL (1937 - ), Saying kept under desk glass, 17 September 1995.

Notebooks - FRANCIS BACON

A man would do well to carry a pencil in his pocket and write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought are commonly the most valuable and should be secured because they seldom return.

FRANCIS BACON (1561 - 1626), In Wisdom, vol. 38, 1962.

Notebooks - JOHN AUBREY

[Thomas Hobbes] walked much and contemplated, and he had in the head of his Staff a pen and inkhorn, carried always a Notebook in his pocket, and as soon as a notion darted, he presently entered it into his Book, or else he should perhaps have lost it.

JOHN AUBREY (1626 - 1697), "Thomas Hobbes", Brief Lives, ed, Oliver Lawson Dick, 1950.

Necessity - PLATO

The true creator is necessity, which is the mother of invention.

PLATO (427? - 347 B. C.), The Republic, 2.369, tr. Benjamin Jowett, 1894.
(Popular version: Necessity is the mother of invention.)

Necessity - NAPOLEON

Don't talk to me of goodness, of abstract justice, of natural law. Necessity is the highest law.

NAPOLEON (1769 - 1821), Remark, April 1815, The Mind of Napoleon: A Selection from His Written and Spoken Words, 202, ed, J. Christopher Herold, 1955.

Morality - GEORGE HEGEL

Passions, private aims, and the satisfaction of selfish desires, are ... most effective springs of action. Their power lies in the fact that they respect none of the limitations which justice and morality would impose on them; and [they] have a more direct influence over man than the artificial and tedious discipline that tends to order and self-restraint, law and morality.

GEORG HEGEL (1770 - 1831), Introduction (3.2.2) to Philosophy of History, 1832, tr. John Sibree, 1900.

Morality - JOHN LOCKE

Moral knowledge is as capable of real certainty as mathematics.

JOHN LOCKE (1632 - 1704), An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 4.4.7, 1690, ed. Alexander Campbell Fraser, 1894.

Money - PUBILIUS SYRUS

Money alone sets all the world in motion.

PUBILIUS SYRUS (85 - 43 B.C.), Moral Sayings, 656, tr. Darius Lyman, Jr., 1862.

Man - JEAN-PAUL SARTRE

A man is what he wills himself to be.

JEAN-PAUL SARTRE (1905 - 1980), No Exit (one-act play), 1944, tr. Stuart Gilbert, 1946.

Life - FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY

"Where was it", thought Raskolnikov, "where was it I read about a man sentenced to death who, one hour before his execution, says or thinks that if he had to live on some high rock, on a cliff, on a ledge so narrow that there was only room enough for him to stand there, and if there were bottomless chasms all round, the ocean, eternal darkness, eternal solitude, and eternal gales, and if he had to spend all his life on that square yard of space - a thousand years, an eternity - he'd rather live like that than die at once! Oh, only to live, live, live! Live under any circumstances - only to live!"

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY (1821 - 1881), Crime and Punishment, 1.2, 1866, tr. David Magarshack, 2.6, 1951.

Leisure - BERTRAND RUSSELL

To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization, and at present very few people have reached this level.

BERTRAND RUSSELL (1872 - 1970), The Conquest of Happiness, 14, 1930.

Laws - MONTAIGNE

I have my own laws and court to judge me, and I address myself to them more than anywhere else.

MONTAIGNE (1533 - 1592), "Of Repentance", Essays, 1588, tr. Donald M. Frame, 1958.

Knowledge - MUHAMMAD

Acquire knowledge. It enables its possessor to distinguish right from wrong; it lights the way to Heaven; it is our friend in the desert, our society in solitude, our companion when friendless; it guides us to happiness; it sustains us in misery; it is an ornament among friends and an armor against enemies.

MUHAMMAD (A.D. 570? - 632), The Sayings of Muhammad, 290, tr. Abdullah Al-Suhrawardy, 1941.

Knowledge - JOHN LOCKE

The only Fence against the World is a thorough Knowledge of it.

JOHN LOCKE (1632 - 1704), Some Thoughts Concerning Education, 94, 1693.

Kings - LOUIS XIV

It is legal because I wish it.

LOUIS XIV (1638 - 1715), French king.

Journals - HENRY DAVID THOREAU

Associate reverently and as much as you can with your loftiest thoughts. Each thought that is welcomed and recorded is a nest egg, by the side of which more will be laid. Thoughts accidentally thrown together become a frame in which more may be developed and exhibited. Perhaps this is the main value of a habit of writing, of keeping a journal - that so we remember our best hours and stimulate ourselves....Having by chance recorded a few disconnected thoughts and then brought them into juxtaposition, they suggest a whole new field in which it was possible to labor and to think. Thought begat thought.

HENRY DAVID THOREAU (1817 - 1862), Journal, 22 January 1852.

Intuition - CARL G. JUNG

Intuition [is] perception via the unconscious.

CARL G. JUNG (1875 - 1961), "Conscious, Unconscious and Individuation", 1939, Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, tr. R. F. C. Hull, 1959.

Inferiority - ELEANOR ROOSEVELT

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

ELEANOR ROOSEVELT (1884 - 1962), 1936, The Wit and Wisdom of Eleanor Roosevelt, p. 92, ed. Alex Ayres, 1996.

Ideas - MARCEL PROUST

A powerful idea communicates some of its strength to him who challenges it.

MARCEL PROUST (1871 - 1922), "Madame Swann at Home", Remembrances of Things Past: Within a Budding Grove, 1913 - 1927, tr. C. K. Scott Moncrieff, 1930.

Happiness - ARISTOTLE

The life of the intellect is the best and pleasantest for man, because the intellect more than anything else is the man. Thus it will be the happiest life as well.

ARISTOTLE (384 - 322 B. C.), Nicomachean Ethics, 10.7, tr. J. A. K. Thomson, 1953.

Fathers - SAM JOHNSON

Get up, Lyndon. Every boy in the country's got a two-hour start on you.

SAM JOHNSON (1877 - 1937), Words used in rousing his young son out of bed in the morning. In James David Barber, The Presidential Character: Predicting Performance in the White House, 4, 1972.

Failure - SUSAN B. ANTHONY

Failure is impossible.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY (1820 - 1906), On her 86th birthday, one month before her death in 1906. In Lynn Sherr, Failure is Impossible: Susan B. Anthony in Her Own Words, 1995.