“Seward appreciated the honest and open way that Stanton lied; it was the hallmark of the truly great lawyer, and demonstrated a professional mastery not unlike his own.”
― Gore Vidal, quote from Lincoln
“I realize,” said Sumner, “that the press is hardly reliable.” Lincoln turned from the window; suddenly, he grinned. “Oh, yes, they are. They lie. And then they re-lie. So they are nothing if not re-lie-able.”
― Gore Vidal, quote from Lincoln
“In politics, as in love, opposites attract, and the misunderstandings that ensue tend to be as bitter and, as in love, as equally terminal.”
― Gore Vidal, quote from Lincoln
“Now you may not know this”—Lincoln shut his eyes—“but when I first ran for the Illinois legislature, I came out, more or less, for female suffrage; not exactly the most popular position to take back then, and in that part of the world.” “It is still not the most popular issue anywhere in the world, thank God.” “Well, Mrs. Frémont comes to see me late at night—right off the cars from the West—and threatens me to my face with an uprising against the government, led by the Frémonts and their radical friends. So I called her, in the nicest way, I thought, ‘Quite a lady politician,’ and she was madder than a wet hen and went and told everyone that I’d threatened her!” Lincoln sighed. “Is it possible that female suffrage may not be the answer to every human problem?”
― Gore Vidal, quote from Lincoln
“helped the boy-governor eat the remains of the fruit, they discussed how it was that newspapers sometimes knew all sorts of secrets that they ought not to have known—and certainly ought not to publish, when the rest of the time they had no interest in facts at all. “Whatever sounds as if it might suit the prejudices of the reader, that is what will be published,” said Chase.”
― Gore Vidal, quote from Lincoln
“It is my task always to know, particularly when I don’t.”
― Gore Vidal, quote from Lincoln
“You know what Mr. Bates called me?” Seward shook his head with wonder. “An unprincipled liar. And here I am one of the most heavily principled men in politics.” Lincoln chuckled. In every way, making allowances for regional differences, Seward’s humor was not unlike his own. “And since you’re a smart man, Governor, you never actually lie. Smart men never have to.”
― Gore Vidal, quote from Lincoln
Gore Vidal
Born place: in West Point, New York, The United States
Born date October 3, 1925
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“...as dark as the night gets without a moon, it is really not true darkness. It's just waiting for light to return.”
― Elizabeth Haydon, quote from The Floating Island
“I hope for some sort of peace—but I fear that machines are ahead of morals by some centuries and when morals catch up perhaps there’ll be no reason for any of it. I hope not. But we are only termites on a planet and maybe when we forge too deeply into the planet there will be a reckoning—who knows?”
― Denise Kiernan, quote from The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II
“You light up the blackness that has been my life, and I don’t know how to ever be the kind of man you need and deserve, but I want to try. For you, for me, and for us.”
― Jasinda Wilder, quote from Falling Under
“I don't know--is happiness a thing we choose, I wonder? Or is it something handed out to some, and not to others?"
"A bit of both, I should think."
"...I'm not so sure... I think we all make choices in our lives that set us down the road to happiness or disappointment. It's just that we can't always see where the road is leading us until we're halfway there.”
― Susanna Kearsley, quote from The Splendour Falls
“¿La historia se repite? ¿O se repite sólo como penitencia de quienes son incapaces de escucharla? No hay historia muda. Por mucho que la quemen, por mucho que la rompan, por mucho que la mientan, la historia humana se niega a callarse la boca. El tiempo que fue sigue latiendo, vivo, dentro del tiempo que es, aunque el tiempo que es no lo quiera o no lo sepa. El derecho de recordar no figura entre los derechos humanos consagrados por las Naciones Unidas, pero hoy es más que nunca necesario reivindicarlo y ponerlo en práctica: no para repetir el pasado, sino para evitar que se repita; no para que los vivos seamos ventrílocuos de los muertos, sino para que seamos capaces de hablar con voces no condenadas al eco perpetuo de la estupidez y la desgracia. Cuando está de veras viva, la memoria no contempla la historia, sino que invita a hacerla. Más que en los museos, donde la pobre se aburre, la memoria está en el aire que respiramos; y ella, desde el aire, nos respira.”
― Eduardo Galeano, quote from Upside Down: A Primer for the Looking-Glass World
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