Iota Quotes - page 2
Not that we would detract one iota from the benevolence which does exist in humanity; there is both more gratitude and more cause for gratitude than it is the fashion now-a-days to admit: but this we do say, that the obligation is never from those on whom we have a claim. Kindness is always unexpected; and "overcomes us like a summer cloud," exciting our "special wonder" as well as thankfulness.
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
The population of Belgium...behaved in a diabolical, not to say bestial, manner, not one iota better than the Cossacks. They tortured the wounded, beat them to death, killed doctors and medical orderlies, fired secretly...on men harmlessly standing in the street - in fact by prearranged signal, under leadership...The King of the Belgians has to be notified at once that since his people have placed themselves outside all observance of European customs - from the frontier on, in all the villages, not only in Liege - they will be treated accordingly. Conditions for Belgium will become immensely more difficult.
Wilhelm II of Germany
I have read half your book thro' and I am immensely charmed by it. But some things I disagree with and more I do not understand. This does not apply to the characters, but to your conclusions, e.g. you say "women are more sympathetic than men." Now if I were to write a book out of my experience I should begin Women have no sympathy. Yours is the tradition. Mine is the conviction of experience. I have never found one woman who has altered her life by one iota for me or my opinions. Now look at my experience of men. A statesman, past middle age, absorbed in politics for a quarter of a century, out of sympathy with me, remodels his whole life and policy - learns a science the driest, the most technical, the most difficult, that of administration, as far as it concerns the lives of men, - not, as I learnt it, in the field from stirring experience, but by writing dry regulations in a London room by my sofa with me. This is what I call real sympathy.
Florence Nightingale
I have noticed that people have begun referring to Christopher Reeve as a hero. I do not wish to take away one iota of the courage he must have needed not to wake up screaming every single day, but the hard truth is there was nothing heroic in what happened to him or how he dealt with it...In fact, as far as how he dealt with it he didn't even have a choice. We could imagine he spent every hour of every day when not in front of the cameras begging family members to simply kill him and get it over with-but none of them did so he had no choice but to deal with each day as it came.* Heroism I believe involves choice.
*Not in any way suggesting this is what was happening, just in case there are those who are paralyzed from the neck up who might be reading these words... (2004)
John Byrne