Dated Quotes That Live On . . . With an Accent on Ethics

My RAND calendar was late in arriving this year, so I have had to muddle through the first two weeks of the new year without its wisdom to guide me.

Fortunately, I haven’t made any gross lapses of ethics or morals, that I know of, and now I have the calendar open before me.

It has been my custom for the past several years to share the calendar with my readers, hoping thus to improve their lives.

I can’t say that this year’s dozen quotations--from scholars, statesmen and poets--hue to any theme, though it may be no coincidence that several of them are concerned with ethics, which seems to be in short supply in our society.

To start with, a rather long-winded passage is quoted from William Cobbett’s “Grammar of the English Language” (1819):

“It is the mind that lives; and the length of life ought to be measured by the number and importance of our ideas; and not by the number of our days. Never, therefore, esteem men merely on account of their riches or their station. Respect goodness, find it where you may. Honor talent wherever you behold it unassociated with vice; but, honor it most when accompanied with exertion, and especially when exerted in the cause of truth and justice.”

In this age when we pay homage to the rich and famous, and almost everyone aspires to be rich and famous, Cobbett’s homily may go unheeded. In the past year, I’m afraid, several of our politicians, businessmen and evangelists honored riches over goodness, truth and justice.

The old Quaker, William Penn, reminds us that our governments can be no better then the men who run them (Penn was before Maggie Thatcher and the women’s movement.)

“Governments, like clocks, go from the motion men give them; and as governments are made and moved by men, so by them are ruined too; wherefore governments rather depend upon men than men upon governments.”

Miguel de Cervantes advised historians, but he might just as well have been speaking to journalists:

“For it should be the duty of historians to be exact, truthful, and dispassionate, and neither interest nor fear nor rancor nor affection should swerve them from the path of truth, whose mother is history, rival of time, depository of deeds, witness of the past, exemplar and adviser to the present, and the future’s counselor.”

Amen. I renew my oath.

The American essayist Clarence S. Day speaks out for books: “The world of books is the most remarkable creation of man. Nothing else that he builds ever lasts. Monuments fall; nations perish; civilizations grow old and die out; and, after an era of darkness, new races build others. But in the world of books are volumes that have seen this happen again and again, and yet live on, still young, still as fresh as the day they were written, still telling men’s hearts of the hearts of men centuries dead.”

That will be true, of course, as long as any of us can read.

Former Maine Sen. Margaret Chase Smith advocates ethics in politics: “My creed is that public service must be more than doing a job efficiently and honestly. It must be a complete dedication to the people and to the nation with full recognition that every human being is entitled to courtesy and consideration, that constructive criticism is not only to be expected but sought, that smears are not only to be expected but fought, that honor is to be earned but not bought.”

So far as I know she never betrayed that creed.

The Civil War historian Bruce Catton defines freedom:

“The word Freedom is a dangerous word. It is like phosphorous; you take it out in the open air and it ignites; you can’t toss it about carelessly. The American colonists had put the word freedom into their statement of what they were fighting for. By doing it, they turned an armed protest into a revolution. They created a new nation and turned loose in the world a divine unrest whose end is not yet seen.”

John Ruskin, the 19th-Century English critic, writes on seeing clearly: “The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something, and tell what it saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion--all in one.”

Curiously, in concluding his Second Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln said, “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us finish the work we are in. . . .”

In this era of gobbledygook and doublespeak, it is interesting to note that Lincoln did not say “perceive the right” or “the war in which we are engaged.” With characteristic simplicity he said, “see” and “in,” and therein lay the essence of his style and his genius.

I hope only to write truthfully what I see.