Recurrence Quotes

• Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.

  Patrick Henry

  Freedom, 4th Of July, Blessing

  109 Copy quote

• To prevent the recurrence of misery is, alas! beyond the power of man.

  Thomas Malthus

  Men, Misery, Alas

  Thomas Malthus (2015). “An Essay on the Principle of Population: Illustrated”, p.48, eKitap Projesi

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  May, Repetition, Theatrical

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.44, Simon and Schuster

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more' ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Happiness, Loneliness, Sadness

  "The Gay Science". Book by Friedrich Nietzsche, Sec. 341, 1882.

  95 Copy quote

  Show source

• No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people, but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue.

  George Mason

  Freedom, Blessing, Government

  Virginia Declaration of Rights (Article 15), June 12, 1776.

  23 Copy quote

  Show source

• The standard formulation on remedy is that it ought to cure past violations and prevent their recurrence. That's what antitrust is all about.

  Charles James

  Past, Cures, Standards

  86 Copy quote

• Divine fires do not blaze each day but an artist functions in their afterglow, hoping for their recurrence.

  Ned Rorem

  Artist, Fire, Each Day

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  24 Copy quote

  Show source

• This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence - even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Pain, Dust, Tree

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2010). “The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs”, p.273, Vintage

  57 Copy quote

  Show source

• The recurrence of fundamentals is essential to perpetuity.

  Harold B. Lee

  Essentials, Fundamentals

  4 Copy quote

• It is when a people forget God, that tyrants forge their chains.

  Patrick Henry

  Rights, Tyrants, People

  87 Copy quote

• Bad men cannot make good citizens.

  Patrick Henry

  Men, Tyrants, Citizens

  17 Copy quote

• One is astonished in the study of history at the recurrence of the idea that evil must be forgotten, distorted, skimmed over. We must not remember that Daniel Webster got drunk but only that he was a splendid constitutional lawyer. We must forget that George Washington was a slave owner . . . and simply remember the things we regard as creditable and inspiring. The difficulty, of course, with this philosophy is that history loses its value as an incentive and example; it paints perfect man and noble nations, but it does not tell the truth.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Philosophy, Men, Ideas

  "Whitewashing Black History Month" by Gary Younge, www.theguardian.com. February 1, 2012.

  317 Copy quote

  Show source

• When force of circumstance upsets your equanimity lose no time in recovering your self-control, and do not remain out of tune longer than you can help. Habitual recurrence to the harmony will increase your mastery of it.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Self, Upset, Unity

  17 Copy quote

• Immortal is the moment when I engendered the recurrence. For the sake of this moment I bear the recurrence.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Sake, Bears, Moments

  9 Copy quote

• The recurrence of periods of depression and mass unemployment has discredited capitalism in the opinion of injudicious people. Yet these events are not the outcome of the operation of the free market. They are on the contrary the result of well-intentioned but ill-advised government interference with the market.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Government, People, Liberty

  Ludwig von Mises (2015). “Middle of the Road Policy Leads to Socialism”, p.27, Ludwig von Mises Institute

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The recurrence during the eighteenth century Enlightenment of the aspiration to be the 'Newton of the moral sciences' testifies to the prestige not just of celestial mechanics, but of the 'experimental method' more generally.

  Stefan Collini

  Enlightenment, Moral, Newton

  C. P. Snow, Stefan Collini (2012). “The Two Cultures”, p.10, Cambridge University Press

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Change is certain. Peace is followed by disturbances; departure of evil men by their return. Such recurrences should not constitute occasions for sadness but realities for awareness, so that one may be happy in the interim.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Sadness, Reality, Men

  22 Copy quote

• One of the deep fundamentals of poetry is the recurrence of sounds, syllables, words, phrases, lines, and stanzas. Repetition can be one of the most intoxicating features of poetry. It creates expectations, which can be fulfilled or frustrated. It can create a sense of boredom and complacency, but it can also incite enchantment and inspire bliss.

  Edward Hirsch

  Expectations, Boredom, Inspire

  7 Copy quote

• That no free government, nor the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people, but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles; and by the recognition by all citizens that they have duties as well as rights, and that such rights cannot be enjoyed save in a society where law is respected and due process is observed.

  George Mason

  Blessing, Rights, Government

  13 Copy quote

• The dog [in Pavlov's experiments] does not continue to salivate whenever it hears a bell unless sometimes at least an edible offering accompanies the bell. But there are innumerable instances in human life where a single association, never reinforced, results in the establishment of a life-long dynamic system. An experience associated only once with a bereavement, an accident, or a battle, may become the center of a permanent phobia or complex, not in the least dependent on a recurrence of the original shock.

  Gordon Allport

  Dog, Offering, Long

  "A Psychological Interpretation". Book by Gordon Allport, p. 199, 1938.

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• It will be remembered, that a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles is solemnly enjoined by most of the state constitutions, and particularly by our own, as a necessary safeguard against the danger of degeneracy, to which republics are liable, as well as other governments, though in a less degree than others.

  James Madison

  Education, Government, Principles

  James Madison (1836). “The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution: As Recommended by the General Convention at Philadelphia in 1787. Together with the Journal of the Federal Convention, Luther Martin's Letter, Yates's Minutes, Congressional Opinions, Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of '98-'99, and Other Illustrations of the Constitution”, p.550

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• Christmas time! That man must be a misanthrope indeed, in whose breast something like a jovial feeling is not roused - in whose mind some pleasant associations are not awakened - by the recurrence of Christmas.

  Charles Dickens

  Christmas, Men, Feelings

  Charles Dickens (1839). “Sketches by Boz”, p.172

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• The idea of eternal return is a mysterious one, and Nietzsche has often perplexed other philosophers with it: to think that everything recurs as we once experienced it, and that the recurrence itself recurs ad infinitum! What does this mad myth signify?

  Milan Kundera

  Thinking, Ideas, Mad

  5 Copy quote

• recurrence is sure. What the mind suffered last week, or last year, it does not suffer now; but it will suffer again next week or next year. Happiness is not a matter of events; it depends upon the tides of the mind.

  Alice Meynell

  Next Week, Years, Mind

  Alice Meynell (2013). “The Essential Alice Meynell Collection”, p.384, eBookIt.com

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• In all well-attempered governments there is nothing which should be more jealously maintained than the spirit of obedience to law, more especially in small matters; for transgression creeps in unperceived and at last ruins the state, just as the constant recurrence of small expenses in time eats up a fortune.

  Aristotle

  Law, Government, Matter

  Aristotle (2013). “The Essential Aristotle”, p.335, Simon and Schuster

  7 Copy quote

  Show source