Rawles Wilcox Quotes & Sayings

What is it about this book - essentially a military history of the first month of the First World War - which gives it its stamp and has created its enormous reputation? Four qualities stand out: a wealth of vivid detail which keeps the reader immersed in events, almost as an eyewitness; a prose style which is transparently clear, intelligent, controlled and witty; a cool detachment of moral judgment - Mrs. Tuchman is never preachy or reproachful; she draws on skepticism, not cynicism, leaving the reader not so much outraged by human villainy as amused and saddened by human folly. These first three qualities are present in all of Barbara Tuchman's work, but in The Guns of August there is a fourth which makes the book, once taken up, almost impossible to set aside. Remarkably, she persuades the reader to suspend any foreknowledge of what is about to happen. — Barbara W. Tuchman

Justice is like the north star, which is fixed, and all the rest revolve about it. — Confucius

Because nobody could love 'ee more than Tess did! ... She would have laid down her life for 'ee. I could do no more. — Thomas Hardy

I decided to write Westerns because there was a terrific market for Westerns in the '50s. There were a lot of pulp magazines, like 'Dime Western' and '10 Story Western' that were still being published. The better ones paid two cents a word. And I thought, 'I like Westerns.' — Elmore Leonard

The classical guitar has a dynamic to it unlike a regular acoustic guitar or an electric guitar. You know, there's times when you should play and there's times when you gotta hold back. It's an extremely dynamic instrument. — Steve Vai

Of all the questions about the future of leadership that we can raise for ourselves, we can be certain in our answer to only one: 'Who will lead us?' The answer, of course, is that we will be lead by those we have taught, and they will lead us as we have shown them they should. — William C. Richardson

Sometimes the hardest things in life, are the things most worth doing. It's because we haven't figuered them out yet, doesn't mean we wont. — Richard Castle

But as men grow more industrialised and regimented, the kind of delight that is common in children becomes impossible to adults because they are always thinking of the next thing and cannot let themselves be absorbed in the moment. This habit of thinking of the 'next thing' is more fatal to any kind of aesthetic excellence than any other habit of mind that can be imagined, and if art, in any important sense, is to survive it will not be by the foundation of solemn academies, but by recapturing the capacity for wholehearted joys and sorrows which prudence and foresight have all but destroyed. — Bertrand Russell

Maybe we should remember to smile more often. You know, just for the sake of smiling. — Gabe Berman

I feel the gods are pretty dead, though I suppose I ought to know that however, to be somewhat more philosophical in the matter, if atheism means simply not being a theist, then of course I'm an atheist.
[Letter to Max Otto] — John Dewey

Even if I'm playing a bad guy, I work hard to make him multi-leveled and interesting. — Isaiah Washington

Like rays of glory from heaven, piercing the dusty gloom of the church, making each airborne mote shine like a star. — Julie Berry

Be careful what you believe - it is who you are. — Patti Callahan Henry