Quote #145: on block quotation

Probably not a suitable quote for this blog, but worth reading if one plans on doing any original writing:

It is a good idea to avoid long quotations, especially quotations long enough to require indentation.  Tehe are few such quotations in academic writing that could not better be paraphrased.  Long quotations not only discourage the reader, they often serve as a substitute for thought on the part of the writer.

- Christopher Lasch (1932-1934), Plain Style:  A Guide to Written English (University of Pennsylvania Press:  2002), pg. 65. 

I assure our readers that the quotes posted on this blog serve not as substittues for, but rather encouragements to, rigorous thinking.

Quote CXIX

"The truth is this: the march of Providence is so slow and our desires are so impatient; the work of progress is so immense and our means of aiding it so feeble; the life of humanity is so long and that of the individual so brief, that we often see only the ebb of the advancing wave and are thus discouraged. It is history that teaches us hope."

-General Robert E. Lee

(pictured as a young lieutenant in 1831)

Quote No. CXVII

"When you need to shoot, shoot, don't talk."

-Tuco Ramirez

(The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly)

Quote #69: on human improvement

"Beavers build houses; but they build them in nowise differently, or better now, than they did, five thousand years ago. Ants, and honey-bees, provide food for winter; but just in the same way they did, when Solomon referred the sluggard to them as patterns of prudence. Man is not the only animal who labors; but he is the only one who improves his workmanship."

- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), American statesman and president.