Randolph Bourne Quotes & Sayings

We classify things for the purpose of doing something to them. Any classification which does not assist manipulation is worse than useless. — Randolph Bourne

The ironist is ironical not because he does not care, but because he cares too much. — Randolph Bourne

So to all who are situated as I am, I would say
Grow up as fast as you can. — Randolph Bourne

He who mounts a wild elephant goes where the elephant goes. — Randolph Bourne

War is the health of the state. — Randolph Bourne

Really to believe in human nature while striving to know the thousand forces that warp it from its ideal development-to call for and expect much from men and women, and not to be disappointed
and embittered if they fall short- to try to do good with people rather than to them- this is my religion on its human side. And if God exists, I think that he must be in the warm sun, in the kindly actions of the people we know and read of, in the beautiful things of art and nature, and in the closeness of friendships. — Randolph Bourne

A good discussion increases the dimensions of everyone who takes part. — Randolph Bourne

Society is one vast conspiracy for carving one into the kind of statue likes, and then placing it in the most convenient niche it has. — Randolph Bourne

No matter what we have come through, or how many perils we have safely passed, or how imperfect and jagged our life has been, we cannot in our heart of hearts imagine how it could have been different. As we look back on it, it slips in behind us in orderly disarray, and, with all its mistakes, acquires a sort of eternal fitness, and even, at times, a poetic glamour. — Randolph Bourne

A cultivation of the powers of one's personality is one of the greatest needs of life. — Randolph Bourne

The ironic life is a life keenly alert, keenly sensitive, reacting promptly with feelings of liking or dislike to each bit of experience, letting none of it pass without interpretation and assimilation, a life full and satisfying - indeed a rival of the religious life. — Randolph Bourne

If you are not an idealist by the time you are twenty you have no heart, but if you are still an idealist by the time you are thirty, you don't have a head. — Randolph Bourne

A man with few friends is only half-developed; there are whole sides of his nature which are locked up and have never been expressed. He cannot unlock them himself, he cannot even discover them; friends alone can stimulate him and open him. — Randolph Bourne

In your reaction to an imagined attack on your country or an insult to its government, you draw closer to the herd for protection, you conform in word and deed, and you insist vehemently that everybody else shall think, speak, and act together. And you fix your adoring gaze upon the State, with a truly filial look, as upon the Father of the flock. — Randolph Bourne

War is the health of the State. It automatically sets in motion throughout society these irresistible forces for uniformity, for passionate cooperation with the government in coercing into obedience the minority groups and individuals which lack the larger herd sense. — Randolph Bourne

One keeps healthy in wartime ... by a vigorous assertion of values in which war has no part. — Randolph Bourne

For we do not do what we want to do, but what is easiest and most natural for us to do, and if it is easy for us to do the wrong thing, it is that that we will do. — Randolph Bourne

Culture, like the kingdom of heaven, lies within us, and not in foreign galleries and books. — Randolph Bourne

The State is not the nation, and the State can be modified and even abolished in its present form, without harming the nation. On the contrary, with the passing of the dominance of the State, the genuine life-enhancing forces of the nation will be liberated. — Randolph Bourne

All we can ever do in the way of good to people is to encourage them to do good to themselves. — Randolph Bourne

With the shock of war the state comes into its own again. — Randolph Bourne

For the secret of friendship is a mutual admiration, and it is the realization or suspicion that that admiration is lessening on one side or the other that swiftly breaks the charm. — Randolph Bourne

Do not take the world too seriously, nor let too many social conventions oppress you. — Randolph Bourne

Few people even scratch the surface, much less exhaust the contemplation of their own experience. — Randolph Bourne

Friendships are fragile things, and require as much handling as any other fragile and precious thing. — Randolph Bourne

We can easily become as much slaves to precaution as we can to fear. — Randolph Bourne

In America our radicalism is still simply amateurish and incompetent. — Randolph Bourne

Diplomacy is a disguised war, in which states seek to gain by barter and intrigue, by the cleverness of arts, the objectives which they would have to gain more clumsily by means of war. — Randolph Bourne

The world has never favored the experimental life. It despises poets, fanatics, prophets and lovers. — Randolph Bourne

The American intellectuals, in their preoccupation with reality, seem to have forgotten that the real enemy is War rather than imperial Germany. There is work to be done to prevent this war of ours from passing into popular mythology as a holy crusade. What shall we do with leaders who tell us that we go to war in moral spotlessness or who make "democracy" synonymous with a republican form of government? — Randolph Bourne

Self-recognition is necessary to know one's road, but, knowing the road, the price of the mistakes and perils is worth paying. The following of that road will be all the discipline one needs. Discipline does not mean being molded by outside forces, but sticking to one's road against the forces that would deflect or bury the soul. People speak of finding one — Randolph Bourne

Those persons who refuse to act as symbols of society's folk ways, as counters in the game of society's ordaining, are outlawed. — Randolph Bourne