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Century Quotes

“It did not take Man long-probably not more than a hundred centuries-to discover that all the animals except the dog were impossible around the house. One has but to spend a few days with an aardvark or llama, command a water buffalo to sit up and beg or try to housebreak a moose, to perceive how wisely Man set about his process of elimination and selection.”

Source: James Thurber: Writings & Drawings (including The Secret Life of Walter Mitty)

“This oration will be read five hundred years hence with as much rapture as it was heard. It ought to be read at the end of every century, and indeed at the end of every year, forever and ever.”

Men Years Ends Forever Five Heard Century Ought Hundred Rapture

Author:John Adams

“In the mid nineteenth century, the typical murderer was a drunken illiterate; a hundred years later the typical murderer regards himself as a thinking man.”

Thinking Men Years Century Hundred Regard Typical Murderer Nineteenth Century Illiterate Thinking Man

Author:Colin Wilson

“A well-known magazine asks a man how they should refer to him, as Psychologist X, as Author X? He suggests man of letters, for that is what he is, in the eighteenth-century meaning. But they can't buy that because the word doesn't exist in Time-style; he cannot be that, and presumably the old function of letters cannot exist.”

Men Should Wells Asks Known Century Style Letters Function Magazines Well Known Psychologist

Book:Growing Up Absurd: Problems of Youth in the Organized Society

Source: Growing Up Absurd: Problems of Youth in the Organized Society

“To the wisest man, wide as is his vision. Nature remains of quite infinite depth, of quite infinite expansion and all experience thereof limits itself to some few computed centuries and measured square miles.”

Men Vision Century Limits Infinite Remains Depth Wide Miles Squares Expansion Wisest Wisest Man

Book:Carlyle Reader

Source: Carlyle Reader

“The Christian church, in its attitude toward science, shows the mind of a more or less enlightened man of the Thirteenth Century. It no longer believes that the earth is flat, but it is still convinced that prayer can cure after medicine fails.”

Men Mind Believe Stills Shows Earth Christian Church Prayer Attitude Failing Century Medicine Convinced Cures Enlightened Flats Christian Church

Book:Minority Report

Source: Minority Report

“To confound the tyranny of man there should exist for a century a third sex, both male and female, and stronger than men. This new sex would prove with the lash that men as well as women are made for its pleasure; and then you would hear men protesting against the tyranny of the hermaphrodite sex and admitting that strength should not be the sole rule of right. Just why do they refuse to grant the women the independence which they would demand from the third sex?”

Men Should Wells Made Sex Pleasure Century Demand Prove Female Thirds Stronger Independence Males Refuse Tyranny Grants Sole Admitting Lashes Hermaphrodites

Author:Charles Fourier

“Humanism is an overemphasis on human worth and ability, leading man to glorify himself instead of God...While its historical forms may vary, humanism inevitably leads people away from God and spiritual concerns. It promotes the false idea that man is good and that he is superior to God. Secular Humanism of the twentieth century altogether rejects belief in God and worships man as God. The pride of humanism will not go unpunished.”

“We must face the fact that we are on the brink of times when man may be able to magnify his intellectual and inventive capability, just as in the nineteenth century he used machines to magnify his physical capacity. Again, as then, our innocence is lost. And again, of course, the innocence, once lost, cannot be regained. The loss demands attention, not denial.”

Men May Facts Able Faces Used Courses Lost Loss Attention Century Demand Intellectual Capacity Machines Innocence Denial Capability Nineteenth Century

Book:Notes on the Synthesis of Form

Source: Notes on the Synthesis of Form

“For the greater a man's works for the future, the less the present can comprehend them; the harder his fight, and the rarer success. If, however, once in centuries success does come to a man, perhaps in his latter days a faint beam of his coming glory may shine upon him. To be sure, these great men are only the Marathon runners of history; the laurel wreath of the present touches only the brow of the dying hero.”

Ifs Men May Doe Fighting Greater Century Dying Hero Glory Harder Shining Great Men Latter Runners Marathon Beam Brows Laurels Latter Days Marathon Runners Wreaths

Author:Adolf Hitler

“One man saying that everything is wrong can command coast-to-coast attention in living color, a power not given to an absolute monarch a century ago.”

Men Given Attention Century Color Absolutes Command One Man Coast Monarchs Living Color

Author:Walter Wriston

“An armed republic submits less easily to the rule of one of its citizens than a republic armed by foreign forces. Rome and Sparta were for many centuries well armed and free. The Swiss are well armed and enjoy great freedom. Among other evils caused by being disarmed, it renders you contemptible. It is not reasonable to suppose that one who is armed will obey willingly one who is unarmed; or that any unarmed man will remain safe among armed servants.”

Men Wells Evil Force Enjoy Century Citizens Safe Servant Reasonable Republic Rome Submit Swiss Unarmed Great Freedom Sparta

Author:Niccolo Machiavelli

“He sought a way to preserve the past. John Hershel was one of the founders of a new form of time travel.... a means to capture light and memories. He actually coined a word for it... photography. When you think about it, photography is a form of time travel. This man is staring at us from across the centuries, a ghost preserved by light.”

Thinking Men Way Mean Light Past Form Memories Century Photography Ghost Preserves Staring Capture Time Travel Founders

Author:Carl Sagan

“I am the man of the century. No one will ever forget me.”

Men Forget Century He Man Forget Me

Author:Pedro

“King Fahd was a man of great vision and leadership who inspired his countrymen for a quarter of a century as king. He led Saudi Arabia through a period of unparalleled progress and development.”

Men Vision Progress Century Development Kings Periods Inspired Quarters Arabia Saudi Arabia Saudis Countrymen Great Vision Quarter Of A Century Progress And Development

Author:Tony Blair

“There is a great need for a new approach, new methods and new tools in teaching, man's oldest and most reactionary craft. There is great need for a rapid increase in the productivity of learning. There is, above all, great need for methods that will make the teacher effective and multiply his or her efforts and competence. Teaching is, in fact, the only traditional craft in which we have not yet fashioned the tools that make an ordinary person capable of superior performance. In this respect, teaching is far behind medicine, where the tools first became available a century or more ago.”

“Until we begin to discover the national values that for centuries have allowed us to rise above our natures and act as civilized men and women, our country will continue to suffer the steady deterioration in standards that disturbs us all.”

Men Country Suffering Values Century Standards Men And Women Our Country Civilized Steady Rise Above Deterioration

Author:Tom DeLay

“Who can describe the injustice and the cruelties that in the course of centuries the peoples of color of the world have suffered at the hands of Europeans?... We and our civilization are burdened, really, with a great debt. We are not free to confer benefits on these men, or not, as we please; it is our duty. Anything we give them is not benevolence but atonement.”

Men World Giving Hands Courses Century Color Duty Please Civilization Benefits Injustice Debt Cruelty Benevolence Atonement

Author:Albert Schweitzer

“Some men look at Constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them, like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I belonged to and labored with it. It deserved well of its country. It was very like the present, but without the experience of the present; and forty years of experience in Government is worth a century of book-reading; and this they would say themselves, were they to rise from the dead.”

“There have been in this century only one great man and one great thing: Napoleon and liberty. For want of the great man, let us have the great thing.”

Men Want Has Beens Liberty Century Great Things Great Men

Author:Victor Hugo

“The three great problems of this century; the degradation of man in the proletariat, the subjection of women through hunger, the atrophy of the child by darkness.”

Men Children Problem Three Darkness Century Hunger Degradation Proletariat Subjection Atrophy

Book:Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

“A man acquainted with history may, in some respect, be said to have lived from the beginning of the world, and to have been making continual additions to his stock of knowledge in every century.”

Men World May Has Beens Said Century

Book:Essays: Moral, Political and Literary

Source: Essays: Moral, Political and Literary

“In the twentieth century, death terrifies men less than the absence of real life.”

Men Real Century Absence Real Life Twentieth Century

Book:Situationism: A Compendium

Source: Situationism: A Compendium

“Twentieth-century man needs to be reminded at times that work is not the result of the Fall. Man was made to work, because the God who made him was a 'working God.' Man was made to be creative, with his mind and his hands. Work is part of the dignity of his existence.”

Men Needs Mind Made Hands Fall Results Existence Creative Century Dignity Be Creative Twentieth Century

Book:A Heart for God

Source: A Heart for God

“Man is unable to accurately predict events which are but twenty-four hours distant; only the Divine Mind could have foretold the future, centuries before it came to be. Hence, we affirm with the utmost confidence, that the hundreds of fulfilled prophecies in the Bible attest and demonstrate the truth that the Scriptures are the inspired, infallible, inerrant Word of God.”

Men Mind Hours Four Century Events Divine Twenties Inspired Scripture Word Of God Fulfilled Prophecy Infallible

Book:Divine Inspiration of the Bible

Source: Divine Inspiration of the Bible

“I realize that my ministry would someday come to an end. I am only one in a glorious chain of men and women God has raised up through the centuries to build Christ's church and take the Gospel everywhere.”

Men Ends Christ Realizing Church Century Men And Women Raised Chains Glorious Someday Ministry

Book:Billy Graham in Quotes

Source: Billy Graham in Quotes

“I suppose that every age has its own particular fantasy: ours is science. A seventeenth-century man like Blaise Pascal, who thought himself a mathematician and scientist of genius, found it quite ridiculous that anyone should suppose that rational processes could lead to any ultimate conclusions about life, but easily accepted the authority of the Scriptures. With us, it is the other way `round”

Men Way Should Age Found Process Fantasy Century Particular Genius Authority Ultimate Scientist Rounds Accepted Ridiculous Scripture Rational Conclusion Mathematician Pascal

Author:Malcolm Muggeridge

“The very quality of books to read and facts to master with which the twentieth-century man is confronted encourages him to think broadly and superficially about much, but hinders him from thinking deeply and thoroughly about anything.”

Thinking Men Book Facts Quality Century Masters Twentieth Century Hinder Thinking Deeply

Author:J. I. Packer

“If the present tax rates had been in effect from the beginning of our century, many who are millionaires today would live under more modest circumstances. But all those new branches of industry which supply the masses with articles unheard of before, would operate, if at all, on a much smaller scale, and their products would be beyond the reach of the common man.”

Source: Planning for freedom, and sixteen other essays and addresses

“The big divide in this country is not between Democrats and Republicans, or women and men, but between talkers and doers. Think about the things that have improved our lives the most over the past century - medical advances, the transportation revolution, huge increases in consumer goods, dramatic improvements in housing, the computer. The people who created these things - the doers - are not popular heroes. Our heroes are the talkers who complain about the doers.”

Source: Ever Wonder Why?: and Other Controversial Essays

“The history of mankind for the last four centuries is rather like that of an imprisoned sleeper, stirring clumsily and uneasily while the prison that restrains and shelters him catches fire, not waking but incorporating the crackling and warmth of the fire with ancient and incongruous dreams, than like that of a man consciously awake to danger and opportunity.”

Men Dream Lasts Opportunity Fire Four Mankind Century Danger Prison Ancient Awake Warmth Waking Shelter Stirring Sleepers Incorporating

Book:A Short History of the World

Source: A Short History of the World

“Liberal hostility to the traditional family helped to undermine centuries of accumulated wisdom and experience about what was best for children and adults. Far from benefiting only men, marriage confers enormous advantages on women and children as well - a fact that has been thrown into sharp relief by its breakdown over the past forty years.”

Source: Do-Gooders: How Liberals Hurt Those They Claim to Help and the Rest of Us

“The peril of this century is spiritual apathy. As the body requires sunlight, good food, proper exercise and rest, so the spirit of man requires the sunlight of the Holy Spirit; proper exercise of the spiritual functions; the avoiding of evils that affect spiritual health, that are more ravaging in their effects than typhoid fever, pneumonia, or other diseases that attack the body.”

Men Body Spiritual Spirit Evil Effects Century Exercise Holy Disease Function Holy Spirit Apathy Sunlight Avoiding Peril Fever Good Food Spiritual Health Pneumonia Typhoid

Author:David O. McKay

“Not only in peasant homes, but also in city skyscrapers, there lives alongside the twentieth century, the thirteenth. A hundred million people use electricity and still believe in the magic powers of signs and exorcisms . . . movie stars to mediums. Aviators who pilot miraculous mechanisms created by man's genius wear amulets on their sweaters. What inexhaustible reserves they possess of darkness, ignorance and savagery!”

“Pathos truly is the mode for the pessimist. But tragedy requires a nicer balance between what is possible and what is impossible. And it is curious, although edifying, that the plays we revere, century after century, are the tragedies. In them, and in them alone, lies the belief-optimistic, if you will, in the perfectibility of man.”

Ifs Men Play Lying Belief Impossible Century Balance Tragedy Optimistic Curious Pessimist Pathos

Book:The Collected Essays of Arthur Miller

Source: The Collected Essays of Arthur Miller

“War's dirty little secret is that some men love it. I'm trying to unpack why, to look at what it means to be a hero in the context of 21st-century combat.”

Men Trying Looks Mean Littles War Secret Century Hero Dirty Combat 21st Century

Author:Kathryn Bigelow

“We are more gullible and superstitious today than we were in the Middle Ages, and an example of modern credulity is the widespread belief that the Earth is round. The average man can advance not a single reason for thinking that the Earth is round. He merely swallows this theory because there is something about it that appeals to the twentieth century mentality.”

“The so-called Philosophy of India is even more blowsy and senseless than the metaphysics of the West. It is at war with everything we know of the workings of the human mind, and with every sound idea formulated by mankind. If it prevailed in the whole modern world we'd still be in the Thirteenth Century; nay, we'd be back among the Egyptians of the pyramid age. Its only coherent contribution to Western thought has been theosophy-and theosophy is as idiotic as Christian Science. It has absolutely nothing to offer a civilized white man.”

“Perhaps the most incapable Executive that ever filled the presidential chair...it would be difficult to imagine a man less fit to guide the state with honor and safety through the stormy times that marked the opening of the present century.”

Men States Would Be Difficult Imagine Century Honor Fit Safety Filled Guides Opening Presidential Chairs Executives Incapable Stormy

Book:The Naval War of 1812, Or, The History of the United States Navy During the Last War with Great Britain: To which is Appended an Account of the Battle of New Orleans

Source: The Naval War of 1812, Or, The History of the United States Navy During the Last War with Great Britain: To which is Appended an Account of the Battle of New Orleans

“... Amongst all the mechanical poison that this terrible nineteenth century has poured upon men, it has given us at any rate one antidote - the Daguerreotype. (1845)”

Men Given Century Terrible Rate Poison Antidote Nineteenth Century Daguerreotypes

Book:Ruskin, Turner and the Pre-Raphaelites

Source: Ruskin, Turner and the Pre-Raphaelites

“Charlie Chaplin is the greatest artist of the 20th century. He takes me from laughter to tears in seconds. And he was one of the very first funny men. It's like the original violins were made in Cremona and there's never been any better since. Sometimes the best come right off the bat.”

Men Firsts Made Sometimes Artist Century Tears Laughter Originals Take Me Seconds Bats 20th Century Charlie Violin Chaplin Funny Men

Author:Emo Philips

“In fact, the 20th century I think was the most fascinating century and the whole of man civilization because so much happened.”

Thinking Men Whole Facts Happened Century Civilization Fascinating 20th Century

Author:Joan Collins

“Lincoln-sad, patient, kindly Lincoln, who after bearing upon his weary shoulders for four years a greater burden than that borne by any other man of the nineteenth century laid down his life for the people whom living he had served as well-built upon his early study of the Bible.”

People Men Years Wells Study Greater Four Century Built Patient Burden Shoulders Four Years Weary Nineteenth Century

Book:A Square Deal

Source: A Square Deal

“As Commander-in-Chief, I take pleasure in commending the reading of the Bible to all who serve in the Armed Forces of the United States. Throughout the centuries, men of many faiths and diverse origins have found in the Sacred Book words of wisdom, counsel, and inspiration. It is a fountain of strength...an aid in attaining the highest aspiration of the human soul.”

“We must recognise that we have a great inheritance in our possession, which represents the prolonged achievement of the centuries; that there is not one of our simple uncounted rights today for which better men than we are have not died on the scaffold or the battlefield. We have not only a great treasure; we have a great cause. Are we taking every measure within our power to defend that cause?”

Men Today Causes Simple Rights Century Achievement Died Possession Treasure Inheritance Recognise Battlefields Better Man

Author:Winston Churchill

“In the past quarter century, we exposed biases against other races and called it racism, and we exposed biases against women and called it sexism. Biases against men we call humor.”

Men Past Race Century Racism Sexism Exposed Quarters

Author:Warren Farrell

“It will be enough to recall in th is sense that almost all the Countries arose, centuries ago, through cruel conquests. With exception, men have been squandering servants th at at the moment of adjustment did not appear to be worthy of the benefits received.”

Men Has Beens Country Enough Moments Century Benefits Worthy Servant Exception Recalls Conquest Adjustment Squandering

Author:Chico Xavier

“To live with the work and the letters of James Joyce was an enormous privilege and a daunting education. Yes, I came to admire Joyce even more because he never ceased working, those words and the transubstantiation of words obsessed him. He was a broken man at the end of his life, unaware that Ulysses would be the number one book of the twentieth century and, for that matter, the twenty-first.”

Men Firsts Book Ends Matter Would Be Numbers Century Broken Letters Twenties Privilege Enormous Admire Obsessed Twentieth Century Joyce Ulysses Broken Man Transubstantiation

Author:Edna O'Brien

“When the audience begins to see the sunrise on that it's hard for them to turn away from it because they're listening to a man talking to them from over a century ago. And nothing has changed. So what are you going to do about that?”

Men Hard Turns Talking Audience Century Changed Listening Sunrise Things Have Changed

Author:Hal Holbrook

“We have entered an age in which education is not just a luxury permitting some men an advantage over others. It has become a necessity without which a person is defenseless in this complex, industrialized society. We have truly entered the century of the educated man.”

Men Persons Age Century Advantage Aging Complexes Educated Luxury Birthday 50th Birthday Defenseless Educated Man

Author:Lyndon B. Johnson