The 1900s | Carolina Quotes

We came down here for wind and sand, and we have got them.

For some years I have been afflicted with the belief that flight is possible to man. My disease has increased in severity and I feel that it will soon cost me an increased amount of money if not my life. I have been trying to arrange my affairs in such a way that I can devote my entire time for a few months to experiment in this field.

What is chiefly needed is skill rather than machinery. The flight of the buzzard and similar sailors is a convincing demonstration of the value of skill and the partial needlessness of motors. It is possible to fly without motors, but not without knowledge and skill. This I conceive to be fortunate, for man, by reason of his greater intellect, can more reasonably hope to equal birds in knowledge than to equal nature in the perfection of her machinery...

My observation of the flight of buzzards leads me to believe that they regain their lateral balance when partly overturned by a gust of wind, by a torsion of the tips of the wings. If the rear edge of the right wing tip is twisted upward and the left downward the bird becomes an animated windmill and instantly begins to turn, a line from its head to its tail being the axis. It thus regains its level even if thrown on its beam’s end, so to speak, as I have frequently seen them. I think the bird also in general retains its lateral equilibrium, partly by presenting its two wings at different angles to the wind, and partly by drawing in one wing, thus reducing its area. I incline to the belief that the first is the more important and usual method.... My business requires that my experimental work be confined to the months between September and January and I would be particularly thankful for advice as to a suitable locality where I could depend on winds of about 15 miles per hour without rain or too inclement weather. I am certain that such localities are rare.

Lilienthal’s enthusiastic efforts to arouse others may yet prove his most valuable contribution to the solution of the problem. What one man can do himself directly is but little. If however he can stir up ten others to take up the task he has accomplished much.

Hawks are better soarers than buzzards but more often resort to flapping because they wish greater speed. A damp day is unfavorable for soaring unless there is a high wind. No bird soars in a calm. The object of the tail is to increase the spread of surface in the rear when the wings are moved forward in light winds and thus preserve the centre of pressure at about the same spot. It seems to be used as a rudder very little. In high winds it is folded up very narrow.

Piety, church membership, was not the social standard, but integrity and proper treatment of slaves were.

Probably no people nor institutions have been more misunderstood than those of the Southern States.

The marked civilization which distinguished the South was not altogether due to slavery, but unquestionably it largely contributed to the creation and maintenance of certain social peculiarities which are rapidly disappearing.

What more natural and proper than that those who had wealth, were men of affairs, were familiar with markets, read newspapers and traveled, should be consulted and deferred to.

Far more than half of the present ten million bales of cotton have been produced by white labor.

Wealth and all its good things becomes with us at last habit. And habit is life.

Nothing of the kind had ever been seen before in the history of the world, so far as any one knew.

His bill was not only suppressed but the news agencies were threatened and subsidised to prevent accounts of its introduction being circulated throughout the country.

The town and the county were doomed to a ruin more complete and terrible than the four years of war had brought.

The foxes have holes, the birds of the air nests, but the Son of Man had not where to lay His head, but He never starved.

Love is more my whole life than it can be yours.

The democratic party does not expect to destroy poverty, because poverty can never be destroyed until the members of the human race so nearly approach perfection in thought, and act, that they will not incur the penalties prescribed for the violation of natural laws. The democratic party is protesting against those things which interfere with the natural distribution of rewards and punishments. It is protesting against legislation which gathers from millions in order to give an undeserved advantage to hundreds, or at most, thousands. The principles of the party, whether applied to the tariff question, the money question, the trust question, the question of imperialism or to any other question, are intended to secure equal rights to all and to deny special privileges to any. Equality in rights does not mean equality in possessions or equality in enjoyment. A man may have a right to the proceeds of his toil, but if he does not toil there will be no proceeds, or if he toils without intelligence to direct his toil the proceeds will be less than if he toils with intelligence. Every man has a right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," but he can make his life worthless, he can be indifferent to his liberty, and he can so act as to secure misery instead of happiness. Human rights are equal before the law, but the rewards ought to be in proportion to virtue, to industry and to discretion.

Adventurers swarmed out of the North, as much the enemies of one race as of the other, to cozen, beguile and use the negroes. The white men were aroused by a mere instinct of self-preservation — until at last there sprung into existence a great Kuklux Klan, a veritable empire of the South, to protect the Southern country.

The white men of the South were aroused by the mere instinct of self-preservation to rid themselves, by fair means or foul, of the intolerable burden of governments sustained by the votes of ignorant negroes.

The Southern legislatures which Mr. Johnson authorized set up saw the need for action no less than Congress did. It was a menace to society itself that the negroes should thus of a sudden be set free and left without tutelage or restraint. Some stayed very quietly by their old masters and gave no trouble, but most yielded, as was to have been expected, to the novel impulses and excitement of freedom and made their way to the camps and cities, where the blue-coated soldiers were, and the agents of the Freedman’s Bureau.

Adventurers swarmed out of the North to cozen, beguile, and use them. These men were ‘carpet baggers’… They gained the confidence of the negroes, obtained for themselves the most lucrative offices, and lived upon the public treasury, public contracts, and their easy control of affairs… For the Negroes there was nothing but occasional allotments of abandon or forfeited land, the pay of petty offices, a per diem allowances as members of the conventions and the state legislatures which their new masters made business for, or the wages of servants in the various offices of administration. Their ignorance and credulity made them easy dupes.

The white men of the South were aroused by the mere instinct of self-preservation to rid themselves, by fair means or foul, of the intolerable burden of governments sustained by the votes of ignorant negroes and conducted in the interest of adventurers.”

Every country-side wished to have its own Ku Klux, founded in secrecy and mystery like the mother ‘Den’ at Pulaski, until at last there had sprung into existence a great Ku Klux Klan, an ‘Invisible Empire of the South,’ bound together in loose organization to protect the southern country from some of the ugliness hazards of a time of revolution.

It was plain to see that the trouble in the southern States arose out of the exclusion of the better whites from the electoral suffrage no less than from the admission of the most ignorant blacks.

When a girl marries, she exchanges the attentions of all the other men of her acquaintance for the inattention of just one.

Mother never did look so sweet to me as then, and the friends whom I had known for years, seemed to have changed.

Paul, it seemed, was more sanctified before his conversion than after; for, before, he verily thought he was doing God's service in persecuting the saints.

One can not grow into entire sanctification; but, thank God, there are illimitable heights to which he can attain after receiving the experience.

Is not the life more than the food, and the body than the raiment?

Opposition has become greater and greater as the work has progressed; but God is with us, and gives us the victory all along the way.

There are some people who can receive a truth by no other way than to have their understanding shocked and insulted.

Yesterday is done. Tomorrow never comes. Today is here. If you don't know what to do, sit still and listen. You may hear something. Nobody knows. We may pull apart the petals of a rose or make chemical analysis of its perfume, but the mystic beauty of its form and odor is still a secret, locked in to where we have no keys.

Back of every mistaken venture and defeat is the laughter of wisdom, if you listen. Every blunder behind us is giving a cheer for us, and only for those who were willing to fail are the dangers and splendors of life. To be a good loser is to learn how to win. I was sure there are ten men in me and I do not know or understand one of them. I could safely declare, I am an idealist. A Parisian cynic says "I believe in nothing. I am looking for clues." My statement would be : I believe in everything — I am only looking for proofs.

I'm an idealist. I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way.

What is the world at its best but a little round field of the moving pictures with two walking together in it?

I had my own eyes, but I wasn't always looking in the right direction. I was certainly in need of a helping hand at times. Now I feel like Manet who said, "Yes, I am influenced by everybody. But every time I put my hands in my pockets I find someone else's fingers there."

“Great Britain has recently experienced one of the greatest political revolutions she has ever known. The conservative party, with Mr. Balfour, one of the ablest of modern scholars, at its head, and with Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, a powerful orator and a forceful political leader, as its most conspicuous champion, had won a sweeping victory after the Boer war, and this victory, following a long lease of power, led the Conservatives to believe themselves invincible. They assumed, as parties made confident by success often do, that they are indispensable to the nation and paid but little attention to the warnings and threats of the Liberals. One mistake after another, however, alienated the voters and the special elections two years ago began to show a falling off in the Conservative strength, and when the general election was held last fall the Liberals rolled up a majority of something like two hundred in the House of Commons. A new ministry was formed from among the ablest men of the party — a ministry of radical and progressive men seldom equaled in moral purpose and intellectual strength."

Industrial questions are being given consideration in Sweden; laws concerning child labor have been enacted, accident insurance has been provided, and an old age pension is being discussed. Attention is also being given to the housing problem in the cities, to farm allotments and to the establishment of labor bureaus and boards of arbitration. The Gothenburg license system is in operation in Sweden, under which the sale of liquor, where the sale is not entirely prohibited, is in the hands of semi-official corporations. Whether this system is responsible for it or not may be open to question, but statistics show that there has been a large decrease in the sale of beverages containing a high percentage of alcohol.

"Those who believe that the right is sure of ultimate triumph will watch the struggle in Germany and profit by the lessons taught. I am inclined to believe that political considerations are so mingled with economic theories that it is difficult as yet to know just what proportion of the three million socialist voters believe in "the government ownership and operation of all the means of production and distribution." The old age pension act was given as a sop to the socialists, but it strengthened rather than weakened their contentions and their party. It remains to be seen whether the new concessions which they seem likely to secure will still further augment their strength. The Germans are a studious and a thoughtful people and just now they are absorbed in the consideration of the aims and methods of the socialist movement (mingled with a greater or less amount of governmental reform), and the world awaits their verdict with deep interest."

There are two beings who assess character instantly by looking into the eyes,—dogs and children. If a dog not naturally possessed of the devil will not come to you after he has looked you in the face, you ought to go home and examine your conscience; and if a little child, from any other reason than mere timidity, looks you in the face, and then draws back and will not come to your knee, go home and look deeper yet into your conscience.

I got home to read his letter relative to my death; but he, poor fellow, was gone.

The South did not have the means, neither the medicine, but the prisoners in our care were put on the same footing as our own poor soldiers.

The problem was that although ideas like statistical mechanics and the kinetic theory worked at the practical level to provide a mathematical description of what was going on, nobody had seen atoms—more to the point, given the technology of the time it was physically impossible to see atoms. This left the door open to for philosophers such as Ernst Mach to argue that the atomic hypothesis was no more than a hypothesis, what is known as a heuristic device, meaning just because things in the macroscopic world behave as if they were made of atoms that doesn't prove that they are... Mach regarded atoms as no more than a convenient fiction, which provided a basis for physicists to make calculations; anything that could not be detected by the human senses, he argued, was not the proper subject of scientific debate. Einstein disagreed, and argued the case for atoms with his friends. He became obsessed with the idea, and determined that if no one else could prove that atoms were real, he would do it himself.

Treason is an easy word to speak. A traitor is one who fights and loses. Washington was a traitor to George III. Treason won, and Washington is immortal. Treason is a word that victors hurl at those who fail.

The only reason I read a book is because I cannot see and converse with the man who wrote it.

Generally young men are regarded as radicals. This is a popular misconception. The most conservative persons I ever met are college undergraduates. The radicals are the men past middle life.

There is no more prospect of a Speaker now than there was at first; indeed, less, and our men have despaired of Christmas holidays at home.

I did not witness these celestial phenomena being sound asleep as a child should be; but, for years afterward, time was marked from that great event.

So we parted, and, though at that time the Colonel did not doubt but that mine was a dreaming girl's talk, my premonitions were promptly realised.

I think I wept, for it was a time to start the tears; but her reply checked my complainings.

After all, the British people are more friendly to us than all the world besides, outside of the [question of] Southern Confederacy.

I would rather quit public life at seventy, and quit it forever, than to retain public life at a sacrifice to my own self-respect. I will not vote for any law which will make fair for me and foul for another. The blacklist is the most cruel form of oppression ever devised by man for the infliction of suffering upon his weaker fellows.

Not very long ago some one invented the assertion that there were only "Four Hundred" people in New York City who were really worth noticing. But a wiser man has arisen — the census taker — and his larger estimate of human interest has been preferred in marking out the field of these little stories of the "Four Million."

One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.

There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.

The magi, as you know, were wise men — wonderfully wise men — who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.

If man knew how women pass the time when they are alone, they'd never marry.

The true adventurer goes forth aimless and uncalculating to meet and greet unknown fate. A fine example was the Prodigal Son—when he started back home.

And who can suffer injury by just taxation, impartial laws and the application of the Jeffersonian doctrine of equal rights to all and special privileges to none? Only those whose accumulations are stained with dishonesty and whose immoral methods have given them a distorted view of business, society and government. Accumulating by conscious frauds more money than they can use upon themselves, wisely distribute or safely leave to their children, these denounce as public enemies all who question their methods or throw a light upon their crimes. Plutocracy is abhorrent to a republic; it is more despotic than monarchy, more heartless than aristocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. It preys upon the nation in time of peace and conspires against it in the hour of its calamity. Conscienceless, compassionless and devoid of wisdom, it enervates its votaries while it impoverishes its victims. It is already sapping the strength of the nation, vulgarizing social life and making a mockery of morals. The time is ripe for the overthrow of this giant wrong. In the name of the counting-rooms which it has denied; in the name of business honor which it has polluted; in the name of the home which it has despoiled; in the name of religion which it has disgraced; in the name of the people whom it has opprest, let us make our appeal to the awakened conscience of the nation.

The only thing that has ever distinguished America among the nations is that she has shown that all men are entitled to the benefits of the law.

As I have already urged, the practice of that which is ethically best—what we call goodness or virtue—involves a course of conduct which in all respects is opposed to that which leads to success in the cosmic struggle for existence. In place of ruthless self-assertion, it demands self-restraint; in place of thrusting aside or treading down all competitors, it requires that the individual shall not merely respect, but shall help his fellows; its influence is directed not so much to the survival of the fittest as to the fitting of as many as possible to survive. It repudiates the gladiatorial theory of existence. It demands that each man who enters into the enjoyment of the advantages of a polity shall be mindful of his debt to those who have laboriously constructed it, and shall take heed that no act of his weakens the fabric in which he has been permitted to live. Laws and moral precepts are directed to the end of curbing the cosmic process, and reminding the individual of his duty to the community, to the protection and influence of which he owes, if not existence itself, at least the life of something better than a brutal savage. (Evolution and Ethics, pp. 81-82.)

Perhaps there is no happiness in life so perfect as the martyr's.

Turn up the lights — I don't want to go home in the dark.

Whenever my patient begins to count the carriages in her funeral procession I subtract 50 per cent from the curative power of medicines.

The lonesomest thing in all the world is a soul when it is making ready to go on its mysterious, far journey.

Bohemia is nothing more than the little country in which you do not live. If you try to obtain citizenship in it, at once the court and retinue pack the royal archives and treasure and move away beyond the hills.

The democrat says that society is built from the bottom and the republican thinks that society is suspended from the top. The democrat says, make the masses prosperous and then all who rest upon them will share in the prosperity, but the republicans say, make the well to do prosperous and their prosperity will leak through on those below.

[W]e are not bound to adhere to the doctrine held by the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

Since trade ignores national boundaries and the manufacturer insists on having the world as a market, the flag of his nation must follow him, and the doors of the nations which are closed must be battered down. Concessions obtained by financiers must be safeguarded by ministers of state, even if the sovereignty of unwilling nations be outraged in the process. Colonies must be obtained or planted, in order that no useful corner of the world may be overlooked or left unused.

There are a few editor men with whom I am privileged to come in contact. It has not been long since it was their habit to come in contact with me. There is a difference.

In time truth and science and nature will adapt themselves to art. Things will happen logically, and the villain be discomfited instead of being elected to the board of directors. But in the meantime fiction must not only be divorced from fact, but must pay alimony and be awarded custody of the press despatches.

He wrote love stories, a thing I have always kept free from, holding the belief that the well-known and popular sentiment is not properly matter for publication, but something to be privately handled by the alienist and the florist.

I hated Kerner, and one day I met him and we became friends. He was young and gloriously melancholy because his spirits were so high and life had so much in store for him. Yes, he was almost riotously sad. That was his youth. When a man begins to be hilarious in a sorrowful way you can bet a million that he is dyeing his hair.

Kerner's father was worth a couple of millions. He was willing to stand for art, but he drew the line at the factory girl. So Kerner disinherited his father and walked out to a cheap studio and lived on sausages for breakfast and on Farroni for dinner.

I know you. I have heard of you all my life. I know now what a scourge you have been to your country. Instead of killing fools you have been murdering the youth and genius that are necessary to make a people live and grow great. You are a fool yourself, Holmes; you began killing off the brightest and best of our countrymen three generations ago, when the old and obsolete standards of society and honor and orthodoxy were narrow and bigoted. You proved that when you put your murderous mark upon my friend Kerner — the wisest chap I ever knew in my life.

Broadway — the great sluice that washes out the dust of the gold-mines of Gotham.

It was beautiful and simple as all truly great swindles are.

Busy as a one-armed man with the nettle-rash pasting on wallpaper.

She is pale but affectionate, clinging to his arm — always clinging to his arm. Any one can see that she is a peach and of the cling variety.

If ever there was an aviary overstocked with jays it is that Yaptown-on-the-Hudson, called New York.

If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true is really true, there would be little hope of advance.

No doubt a lot of nonsense has been talked about the inalienable rights of the individual, and a great deal that was mere vague sentiment and pleasing speculation has been put forward as fundamental principle.

The Germans are really a stupid people. They always do the wrong thing. They always did the wrong thing during the war. They don't understand human nature. This is the most tactless speech I have ever heard. It will set the whole world against them.

Perhaps it was providential that I was stricken down when I was. Had I kept my health I should have carried the League. Events have shown that the world was not ready for it. It would have been a failure. Countries like France and Italy are unsympathetic with such an organisation. Time and sinister happenings may eventually convince them that some such scheme is required. It may not be my scheme. It may be some other. I see now, however, that my plan was premature. The world was not ripe for it.

History is bright and fiction dull with homely men who have charmed women.

You can't appreciate home till you've left it, money till it's spent, your wife till she's joined a women's club, nor Old Glory till you see it hanging on a broomstick on the shanty of a consul in a foreign town.

We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class, of necessity, in every society, to forego the privileges of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks.

The purpose of a university should be to make a son as unlike his father as possible. By the time a man has grown old enough to have a son in college he has specialized. The university should generalize the treatment of its undergraduates, should struggle to put them in touch with every force of life. Every man of established success is dangerous to society. His tendency is to keep society as it is. His success has been founded upon it. You will not find many reformers among the successful men. A man told me once that he left college interested in humanity. At 40 he was interested only in an industry to which he had applied himself. At 60 he was interested only in his bank account. Any social change affects that bank account. Society cannot progress without change.

At every crisis in one's life, it is absolute salvation to have some sympathetic friend to whom you can think aloud without restraint or misgiving.