Edmund Morris Quotes
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If a man has a very decided character, has a strongly accentuated career, it is normally the case of course that he makes ardent friends and bitter enemies.
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We infinitely desire peace, and the surest way of obtaining it is to show that we are not afraid of war.
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We must never exercise our rights either wickedly or thoughtlessly; we can continue to preserve them in but one possible way, by making the proper use of them.
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...The peculiarity about him is that he has what is essentially a boy's mind. What he thinks he says at once, says aloud. It is his distinguishing characteristic, and I don't know as he will ever outgrow it. But with it he has great qualities which make him an invaluable public servant--inflexible honesty, absolute fearlessness, and devotion to good government which amounts to religion. We must let him work his way, for nobody can induce him to change it
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October 17th Sunday Dresden I am by the fire with not another light but it … It is now after 5. All was dark excep the fire. I lay by it and listened to the wind and thought of the times at home in the country when I lay by the fire with some hickory nuts until like the slave who Again he is king by the banks of the niger Again he can hear the wild roar of the tiger Again I was lying by the roaring fire (with the cold October wind shrieking outside) in the cheerful lighted room and I turned around half expecting to see it all again and stern reality forced itself upon me and I thought of the time that would come never, never, never.
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Reading, as he has explained to Trevelyan, is for him the purest imaginative therapy.
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I’m aware of the- the fact that people elsewhere in the world think differently from us. I can sort of see us, us Americans with their eyes. And not all that I see is- is attractive. I see an insular people who are- are insensitive to foreign sensibilities, who are lazy, obese, complacent and increasingly perplexed as to why we are losing our place in the world to people who are more dynamic than us and more disciplined.
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An autocrat’s a ruler that does what th’ people wants an’ takes th’ blame f’r it.
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We cannot, when the nation becomes fully civilized and very rich, continue to be civilized and rich unless the nation shows more foresight than we are showing at this moment.
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I think that the love of the really happy husband and wife—not purged of passion, but with passion heated to a white heat of intensity and purity and tenderness and consideration, and with many another feeling added thereto—is the loftiest and most ennobling influence that comes into the life of any man or woman, even loftier and more ennobling than the wise and tender love for children.
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We had no longing for excessive wealth: a mere competency, though earned by daily toil, so that it was reasonably sure, and free from the drag of continued indebtedness to others, was all we coveted.
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Members of the White House Gang admit to “queer sensations” at the sight of this great barrel bearing down upon them, and half expect it to burst out of the Presidential shirt.
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Do not all these things interest you? Isn’t it a fine thing to be alive when so many great things are happening?
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Every man who appreciates the majesty and beauty of the wilderness and of wild life, should strike hands with the far-sighted men who wish to preserve our material resources, in the effort to keep our forests and our game-beasts, game-birds, and game-fish—indeed, all the living creatures of prairie and woodland and seashore—from wanton destruction. Above all, we should recognize that the effort toward this end is essentially a democratic movement. It is entirely within our power as a nation to preserve large tracts of wilderness, which are valueless for agricultural purposes and unfit for settlement, as playgrounds for rich and poor alike.… But this end can only be achieved by wise laws and by a resolute enforcement of the laws.
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For once, he could look back at the past without regret, and at the future without bewilderment. Simply and touchingly, he wrote in his diary: “I have had so much happiness in my life so far that I feel, no matter what sorrows come, the joys will have overbalanced them."
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All that is most valuable can be had for nothing. They come as presents from the hand of the Creator, and neither air nor sky, nor beauty, genius, health, or strength, can be bought or sold.
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Take care of your morals first, your health next, and finally your studies.
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Roosevelt remarked on the anomaly whereby man, as he progressed from savagery to civilization, used up more and more of the world’s resources, yet in doing so tended to move to the city, and lost his sense of dependence on nature. Lacking that, he also lost his foresight, and unwittingly depleted the inheritances of his children. “We cannot, when the nation becomes fully civilized and very rich, continue to be civilized and rich unless the nation shows more foresight than we are showing at this moment.
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He saw at once that the crowd “was filled with whooping enthusiasm and every kind of whiskey,” and that a riot might ensue if either camp felt slighted.
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Persuasion should come before force. In any case it is the availability of raw power, not the use of it, that makes for effective diplomacy.
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We Americans have many grave problems to solve, many threatening evils to fight, and many deeds to do, if, as we hope and believe, we have the wisdom, the strength, and the courage and the virtue to do them. But we must face facts as they are. We must neither surrender ourselves to a foolish optimism, nor succumb to a timid and ignoble pessimism …
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He is the most dangerous foe to human liberty that has ever set foot on American soil.
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If he was less motivated by compassion than anger at what he saw as the arrogance of capital,he chafed,nonetheless,to regulate it.
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It is not a good thing for a country to have a professional yodeler, a human trombone like Mr. Bryan as secretary of state, nor a college president with an astute and shifty mind, a hypocritical ability to deceive plain people … and no real knowledge or wisdom concerning internal and international affairs as head of the nation.