A Quote by Edwin Percy Whipple

A politician weakly and amiably in the right is no match for a politician tenaciously and pugnaciously in the wrong. You cannot, by tying an opinion, to a man's tongue, make him the representative of that opinion; and at the close of any battle for principles, his name will be found neither among the dead nor among the wounded, but among the missing.

Edwin Percy Whipple

Quote Topics

Among Any Battle Cannot Close Dead Found Him His Make Man Match Missing Name Neither Nor Opinion Politician Principles Representative Right Tongue Will Wounded Wrong

Quote Author

Edwin Percy Whipple
American - Essayist
March 8, 1819 - June 16, 1886

A politician weakly and amiably in the right, is no match for a politician tenaciously and pugnaciously in the wrong.

Edwin Percy Whipple

I am aware that there was a general opinion among people that I was close to Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, among other Left leaders. Yes, I was close to them because I had to work closely with the state government.

Roopa Ganguly

As for the differences of opinion upon speculative questions, if we wait till they are reconciled, the action of human affairs must be suspended forever. But neither are we to look for perfection in any one man, nor for agreement among many.

Junius

If my opinion is of any worth, the fieldfare is the greatest delicacy among birds, the hare among quadrupeds.

Martial

If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.

H. L. Mencken

In every community there are little knots of fantastic extremists who loudly proclaim that they are striving for righteousness, and who, in reality, do their feeble best for unrighteousness. Just as the upright politician should hold in peculiar scorn the man who makes the name of politician a reproach and a shame, so the genuine reformer should realize that the cause he champions is especially jeopardized by the mock reformer who does what he can to make reform a laughingstock among decent men.

Theodore Roosevelt

The old adage about giving a man a fish versus teaching him how to fish has been updated by a reader: Give a man a fish and he will ask for tartar sauce and French fries! Moreover, some politician who wants his vote will declare all these things to be among his 'basic rights.'

Thomas Sowell

Among a people without fellow-feeling, especially if they read and speak different languages, the united public opinion, necessary to the working of the representative government, cannot exist.

John Stuart Mill

There is a reason for the affected profession of " anarchist sympathies" among Tories and grandees, and of " libertarian principles" by Hobbesian yahoos of the right. Among the former, one sees the upholding of the view that a gentleman's business and property are his own, and none of the government's. Among the latter, a distaste for democracy, for taxation, and for the need to consult others about the planet.

Christopher Hitchens

Think the very fact that somebody like Mike Pence is seen as useful to the [Donald] Trump campaign would be analytically a sign of difficulty for him because, you know, the Republican Party over the last two decades has needed to include his support among women, among Latinos, among blacks, among young people, and among highly educated people.

Mark Colvin

The measure of any man's virtue is what he would do, if he had neither the laws nor public opinion, nor even his own prejudices, to control him.

William Hazlitt

Why prove to a man he is wrong? Is that going to make him like you? Why not let him save face? He didn't ask for your opinion. He didn't want it. Why argue with him? You can't win an argument, because if you lose, you lose it; and if you win it, you lose it. Why? You will feel fine. But what about him? You have made him feel inferior, you hurt his pride, insult his intelligence, his judgment, and his self-respect, and he'll resent your triumph. That will make him strike back, but it will never make him want to change his mind. A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.

Dale Carnegie

A hero is born among a hundred, a wise man is found among a thousand, but an accomplished one might not be found even among a hundred thousand men.

Plato

No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists. You cannot value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead.

T. S. Eliot

Of course my moods change, but the average is serenity. I have a firm faith in art, a firm confidence in its being a powerful stream which carries a man to a harbor, though he himself must do his bit too; at all events, I think it such a great blessing when a man has found his work that I cannot count myself among the unfortunate. I mean, I may be in certain relatively great difficulties, and there may be gloomy days in my life, but I shouldn't like to be counted among the unfortunate, nor would it be correct if I were.