James > James's Quotes

“down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. He is the hero; he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor—by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world.

“He will take no man’s money dishonestly and no man’s insolence without a due and dispassionate revenge. He is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him.

“The story is this man’s adventure in search of a hidden truth, and it would be no adventure if it did not happen to a man fit for adventure. If there were enough like him, the world would be a very safe place to live in, without becoming too dull to be worth living in.”
― Raymond Chandler

“No, no! The adventures first, explanations take such a dreadful time.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein

“good convention, with the military class and the”
― James D. Best, The Shut Mouth Society

“Our forefathers bequeathed to us far more than a republic. They willed to us an enduring Constitution that incorporates more thought and brainpower than any document ever written by man. After fifty-five convention delegates worked on it ceaselessly for four months, three million people argued about it for two years, and only then was it ratified by conventions of the people so it could become the supreme law of the land. And immediately after it was put in force, Congress acceded to popular demand by proposing ten amendments that restricted the government from abridging the rights of the governed. Was”
― James D. Best, Tempest at Dawn

“Neither nations nor children should be conceived in public.”
― James D. Best, Tempest at Dawn

“We must endure the ignorant to protect the liberty of the majority.”
― James D. Best, Tempest at Dawn