Edmund Morris Quotes
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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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It is true, as the champions of the extremists say, that there can be no life without change, and that to be afraid of what is different or unfamiliar is to be afraid of life. It is no less true, however, that change may mean death and not life, and retrogression instead of development.
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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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Physically, too, he is funny—never more so than when indulging his passion for eccentric exercise. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge has been heard yelling irritably at a portly object swaying in the sky, “Theodore! if you knew how ridiculous you look on top of that tree, you would come down at once.”53 On winter evenings in Rock Creek Park, strollers may observe the President of the United States wading pale and naked into the ice-clogged stream, followed by shivering members of his Cabinet. Thumping noises in the White House library indicate that Roosevelt is being thrown around the room by a Japanese wrestler; a particularly seismic crash, which makes the entire mansion tremble, signifies that Secretary Taft has been forced to join in the fun.
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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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Take care of your morals first, your health next, and finally your studies.
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A stocky figure in a frock coat sprang up the front steps of the White House.
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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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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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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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The Kaiser was enough of a man to stand a tough, confidential message--and enough of a woman, presumably, to retreat if it could be made to look glamorous.
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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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Reading, as he has explained to Trevelyan, is for him the purest imaginative therapy.
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The death-knell of the republic had rung as soon as the active power became lodged in the hands of those who sought, not to do justice to all citizens, rich and poor alike, but to stand for one special class and for its interests as opposed to the interests of others.
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Theodore Senior belonged to a class and a generation that considered politics to be a dirty business, best left, like street cleaning, to malodorous professionals.
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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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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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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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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.
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Somewhere between six one evening and eight-thirty next morning, beside his dressing and his dinner and his guests and his sleep, he had read a volume of three-hundred-and-odd pages.
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It is not often that a man can make opportunities for himself. But he can put himself in such shape that when or if the opportunities come he is ready to take advantage of them.
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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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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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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.