Famous Quotes

Read these famous quotes, all of which have to do with identity—religious identity, personal identity, national identity, etc. Many of these are controversial. Try to paraphrase the author’s statement. Then discuss whether you agree or disagree. How could you go about finding evidence to back up your view? Note: all of this is potential fodder for your critical witness papers!!!

1) “You have to know the past to understand the present.” —Carl Sagan (1934-1996)


2) “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” —Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)


3) “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” —Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)


4) “The unexamined life is not worth living.” —Socrates (469 BC-399 BC)


5) “The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.” —Wilhelm Stekel (1868-1940)


6) “Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple.” —Barry Switzer (1937- )


7) “A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.” -Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988)


8) “What is the essence of America? Finding and maintaining that perfect, delicate balance between freedom ‘to’ and freedom ‘from.’” —Marilyn vos Savant (1946- )


9) “You can be loyal to Jesus just as you’re loyal to your own country. But you’re not serving your country if you think it’s necessarily the best of all possible countries. That is doing a disservice to your country. It is refusing to be critical where criticism is proper. So of religion. Every religion should be self-critical or else it soon degenerates into a self-righteous hypocrisy. —Alan Watts (1915-1973)


10) “A man's country is not a certain area of land, of mountains, rivers, and woods, but it is a principle; and patriotism is loyalty to that principle.” —George William Curtis (1824-1892)


11) “Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear.” —Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)


12) "Not all that glitters is gold. Not all who wander are lost." -JRR Tolkien (1892-1973)


13) “We say that a girl with her doll anticipates the mother. It is more true, perhaps, that most mothers are still but children with playthings.” F.H. Bradley (1846–1924)


14) "Learn the rules, and then forget them." —Matsuo Basho (1644-1694)


15) “An earthquake achieves what the law promises but does not in practice maintain - the equality of all men.” -Ignazio Silone (1900-1978)


16) “I don't know what kind of weapons will be used in the third world war, assuming there will be a third world war. But I can tell you what the fourth world war will be fought with -- rocks.”
–Albert Einstein (1879-1955)


17) “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.” —Blaise Pascal, a Catholic philosopher (1623-1662)


18) “Miracles do not happen in contradiction to nature, but only to that which is known to us in nature.” —Saint Augustine (354-430 A.D.)


19) “Anger is never without a reason, but seldom with a good one.” —Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)


20) “A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read.” —Mark Twain (1835-1910)

21) "Your very silence shows you agree." —usually attributed to Euripides (480 BC-406 BC)