Glenn's Book of Quotes Number Thirty-Seven

"God will not make himself manifest to cowards" -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

That one is a good reminder for me.  After all, this guy is my spirit animal.

Glenn's Book of Quotes Number Thirty-Six

"Hide not your talents, they for use were made.  What's a sundial in the shade?" -- attributed to Benjamin Franklin

Can't add to Franklin.  Pithiness was one of his talents.

Glenn's Book of Quotes Number Thirty-Five

"And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make." -- The Beatles

Glenn's Book of Quotes Number Thirty-Four

"The soul is no traveller; the wise man stays at home, and when his necessities, his duties, on any occasion call him from his house, or into foreign lands, he is at home still, and shall make men sensible by the expression of his countenance, that he goes the missionary of wisdom and virtue, and visits cities and men like a sovereign, and not like an interloper or a valet." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Therefore, if you should see me somewhere upon the spokes of the universe, far from my home at its hub, then do seek me out for my wisdom and virtue. I shall endeavor to be generous.  

Glenn's Book of Quotes Number Thirty-Three

“Thou canst not touch the freedom of my mind.” – John Milton

 I think, therefore I'm free.

Glenn's Book of Quotes Number Thirty-Two

“It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom.  It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.” -- Mohandas K. Gandhi

Glenn's Book of Quotes Number Thirty

"The appeal of the spectrally macabre is generally narrow because it demands from the reader a certain degree of imagination and a capacity for detachment from everyday life." -- H.P. Lovecraft

Happy Halloween to all you imaginative, intelligent people out there. As for the rest of you, enjoy your slasher movies, sparkly vampires, and fun-size candy bars. To each their own, boys and ghouls.

Glenn's Book of Quotes Number Twenty-Eight

"Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead."

-- Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanac

I keep this quote in mind to remind myself that none of you can be trusted.  I also like Ronald Reagan's favorite Russian proverb: "Trust but verify."  You know what that means?  It means "don't trust."  

It's a hard lesson, but listen to me, oh my best beloved, never completely trust anyone.  There is only one person that you can trust, and that's yourself, and I wouldn't be too sure about that either.  This is a grim little entry from the Book of Quotes, but I've lived long enough to have been lied to, betrayed, cheated on, slandered, and stolen from.  I'm not saying that you should act as if everyone was a scoundrel, just be prepared for when they turn out to be so.

Glenn's Book of Quotes Number Twenty-Seven

"By doubting we are led to enquiry, and by enquiry we discern the truth." -- Peter Abelard

I distrust people who have no doubt.  If you do not doubt, you do not think, and people who do not think proceed with absolute confidence in the rightness of their motives, and absolute blindness to the consequences of their acts.  I have met people of faith for whom doubt is a sin.  Just as the unexamined life is not worth living, the unexamined faith is not worth believing in.  If you have not doubted, you have not really thought about your faith.  If you have not thought about your faith, how do you really know if it is the truth?  Do you not trust yourself?

When someone says that they know that God exists because it says so in the inerrant Bible, I back away.  When someone says that they know that God does not exist because he cannot be dreamt of in their philosophy, I pity them.
When someone says that the political philosophy they subscribe to is so certainly good that society should be re-ordered as they prescribe, I reach for my culture.

When someone says that they don't know, I'm right with them.
When someone says that they believe that they are right, but that they accept the possibility that they might be wrong, I tend to trust them.

I sing the praises of doubt. Thomas doubted, enquired, discerned the truth, and strengthened his faith.  Doubt strengthens the mind, promotes tolerance, seeks diversity, and fights fanaticism.

Question everything.

Unless, of course, I'm wrong.

Glenn's Book of Quotes Number Twenty-Six

". . . a wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government . . ." -- Thomas Jefferson, first inaugural address

From the very beginning, Americans have had a healthy distrust of power.  If that power is concentrated in the hands of the few, and if those few are insulated from the people, that distrust turns to outright hostility.  In 1801 the biggest, scariest power in the land was the still somewhat new federal government.  The Constitution, which created that government, was only twelve years old.  The Bill of Rights, which tempered its power, was only ten.  Would this new government usurp the power that rightly belonged to the people, or would it be a faithful steward of the power granted to it by the people?  


When policy is being debated today I often think of this quote.  Will this new action by our powerful government leave us more or less free to regulate our own pursuits?  Will they restrict or enhance the blessings of liberty? And is this proposed public good quite good enough to justify taking the bread which the people have earned?  


I'm not providing the answers on any particular questions.  I just think that the questions are worth considering.

Nice Little Quote

Just a little clip from the book I'm reading:

Women fainted at the sight, so it was said, while strong men gasped; but then, women were forever fainting and strong men gasping in the records of that century.

From Pierre Berton's Niagra.

Glenn's Book of Quotes Number Twenty-Four

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. No put the foundations under them.” – Henry David Thoreau

Dream. Dream wild dreams. Then dare to do the work to follow those dreams to the wild places where they are true.

Glenn's Book of Quotes Number 24

"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." -- H.P. Lovecraft

Fear of the unknown is primal. The unknown, after all, is where the monsters of our imagination live. Fear teaches us caution, which keeps us alive to cower another day, but, conversely, it is also fear that drives us forward, into the unknown. We are driven to explore, to find out what lives behind the mountains, what is inside the old house, the isolated town, the forbidden tome. We defeat the unknown, again and again, and keep fear at bay.

Of course, if you're writing weird fiction, you're going to want to fill that unknown with hideous, horrible, unspeakable creatures of eldritch power, unimaginable age, and a physical presence that calls reality itself into question. And maybe some tentacles.

Glenn's Book of Quotes Number Twenty-Three

“All truth passes through three stages. First it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident.” – attributed to Arthur Schopenhauer

Schopenhauer probably never said it, but I still like it. It reminds me that if I find myself in opposition to a new or not widely held point-of-view, I should address it with an open mind, generous heart, and a civil tongue. In other words, listen to Wil Wheaton.

After all, you don't want to be the schmuck people are laughing at for the rest of the century. Do you want to be like Louis Spohr, today remembered only because he called Beethoven's Fifth Symphony “An orgy of vulgar noise?” Or Friedrich Nietzche, who addressed the question of the intellectual capacity of women by suggesting that women who became scholars had something wrong with their sexual organs. Lord Kelvin was chilly to the idea of x-rays, calling it a hoax. Pasteur's theory of germs was called ridiculous. Plate tectonics was long held to be as reasonable as the flat-earth hypothesis. What will be tomorrow's self-evident propositions? Once, people turned hoses on those who demanded racial equality. Tomorrow, will those opposed to marriage equality be widely seen as similarly evil? Once, we knew that the platypus was a fraud. Tomorrow, will someone find a yeti (probably not, but wouldn't it be nice?).

The other side of this coin is that if you find yourself in the minority position you need not despair. In time you may find yourself in a position to laugh at those fools at the institute who called you mad.

Of course, there is a danger in this. I've seen this quote, or some variation on it, used by crackpots to encourage each other. Some things really deserve ridicule. And some things should be violently opposed. I've seen the quote used by truthers and birthers, racists and zealots, and generally people who are evangelizing for some pretty crazy notions. Just because you are being ridiculed and opposed doesn't mean that you are the sole possessor of Truth. It is, after all, just possible that you're nuts.

Glenn's Book of Quotes Number Twenty-One

“It's a man's business to be what he is, and to be it in style.” – Lazarus Long

I guess I should point out that Lazarus Long is a fictional character. He is a long-lived creation of Robert A. Heinlein and was known for his aphorisms, among other things.

There's something about this quote that I find encouraging. Be you, with your own distinctive dash, with every step you take. That, in a nutshell, is your life's work. Go forth.

Glenn's Book of Quotes Number Twenty

“Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.” – Groucho Marx.


Sometimes a quote is just so perfect you can't add anything. I am forever a Marxist.

Glenn's Book of Quotes, Number Nineteen

“To be great is to be misunderstood.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

It's a lovely quote, very encouraging to a lot of us. But remember, the opposite is not always true. Just because you are misunderstood does not mean you are necessarily great. You might just need to express yourself more clearly.

Glenn's Book of Quotes, Number Eighteen

“Depression is melancholy minus its charms.” – Susan Sontag

I like this quote. It reminds me that, once upon a time melancholy was known as “the English disease.” Today, of course, the English disease is soccer.

Melancholy, the blues, whatever you call it, is a condition of human life. Some try to deny it, some wallow in it dramatically, wearing it like a badge. There are times in my life when I've dressed in black, thrown myself on fainting couches, and written execrable poetry. Well, maybe not all that. I have written some terrible limericks. Anyway, being down in the dumps isn't the worst thing. It can lead to contemplation, occasional bouts of creativity, and can look rather romantic. Or it's just self-absorption, sobbing, and too much ice cream. Don't worry, you'll get over it.

Depression, on the other hand, is not at all charming. It's not funny, and just saying that you'll get over it doesn't help a bit. It is a serious disorder of the mind and body. It can ruin every aspect of your life, including your health. It's not a mood or a 'tude, it is death in life. Sometimes it is death itself.

You probably already know that. There's a good chance that someone close to you has been through it or is going through it. It may even be you. Sucks, doesn't it? I know, I've been there.

Here's the thing. Help is available. If you're suffering you don't have to take it forever. You're not going to be able to fix it on your own, you're not going to be able to talk yourself out of it, and you're certainly not going to be able to tough it out or endure it forever.

People with asthma don't try to make their own inhalers. People with myopia don't try to grind their own lenses. Then why should someone expect that they can handle this one on their own? If you're depressed, you need professional help.

Who do you call? Depression is a sickness. When you are sick, you call a doctor. Talk to him or her. Describe your symptoms. You're probably feeling physical symptoms along with the emotional symptoms. It's all part of the illness. Ask your doctor for help. You may get a referral to see someone who can help you work your way through it. You may get a prescription for medicine. You may get both. Either way, you'll probably feel a little better after seeing the doctor because you know you've begun to do something important. The way back can be difficult, but it's a lot better than where you are.

Here's a handy little guide from the Mayo Clinic. It includes some good ideas about preparing to see your doctor.  Check out the symptoms section.  You might see something that looks familiar.

If you're just feeling blue, write me a poem or something.  If you're a hot, mopey goth chick, give me a call.  But if you've got this terrible condition, you can do something about it.  You can get help.

Glenn's Book of Quotes, Number Seventeen

“Those who 'abjure' violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf.” -- George Orwell


It's hard not to admire the pacifist. To rise above our violent civilization and to refuse the call of country or community to take arms requires courage. To answer a higher call, be it one of faith or philosophy, is not easy when your family and neighbors say that the defense of home, loved ones, the flag and all that it stands for, is the most noble thing a person can do. But I believe that the hardiest thing, for the honest pacifist, is to acknowledge the truth of this quote. We know that this is a cruel and bloody world. If you doubt it just pick up a history book or read a newspaper. The only thing that stands between us and that bloody world is the cop and the soldier, both ready to fight for us. That is the flaw in the heart of pure pacifism – its very existence depends upon the violent defense of all that makes it possible: relative peace, prosperity, and freedom.

There is no inherent flaw in the concept of peace or the dream of a more peaceful world. There is certainly no such flaw in the logic of those who would stay the hand of violence when peaceful solutions can be found. It is those who will take up arms under no circumstances, who call for peace at any price, who have to face the fact that the price would be their ability to stand on those very principles. The price of keeping them free to “abjure violence” is violence itself, paid by others.

While it is hard not to admire the principled pacifist, it is well nigh impossible to not admire his defender. He knows that some of those he fights on behalf of despise him for it or say that he is wrong for doing so. He knows that they could be with him or supporting him, but that they instead choose to denigrate his sacrifice. And he knows the truth of what Orwell said, and he does his work anyway. That, I think, really is the most noble thing a person can do.

Glenn's Book of Quotes, Number Sixteen

"My belief is that art should not be comforting; for comfort, we have mass entertainment and one another. Art should provoke, disturb, arouse our emotions, expand our sympathies in directions we may not anticipate and may not even wish." -- Joyce Carol Oates