Decision quotes

Closing defense argument in the Boston Massacre soldiers’ trial, December 1770, preserved by Founders Online. The line belongs to courtroom advocacy about evidence and due process in a specific criminal proceeding.

Talks To Teachers, chapter on Habit; Project Gutenberg #16287. This is the opening clause of James’s third habit-forming maxim; the longer sentence also refers to emotional promptings toward desired habits.

Mental Efficiency, opening discussion of self-development. Project Gutenberg #23347. Bennett is distinguishing method from personal purpose, not claiming that advice or collaboration has no value.

Essay “On Books and Reading”; the surrounding passage explains selective reading rather than hostility to books generally.

Benjamin Franklin, The Morals of Chess, rule 4 in the reviewed public-domain Wikisource transcription. Franklin tells a player not to hurry or distract a slow opponent and immediately lists singing, whistling, watch-checking, reading and tapping as examples; the passage is historical conduct advice about fair play.

Ethan Frome, Chapter VIII, Project Gutenberg #4517. ‘The inexorable facts closed in on him... There was no way out—none’ describes Ethan's perception after he realizes he lacks the money to elope with Mattie. It is tragic fictional narration of despair and constraint, not an objective rule that difficult circumstances have no alternatives or mental-health guidance.

Proverbs 15:22 in the King James Version.

Adam Bede; narrator’s reflection during the novel’s moral development, represented from Project Gutenberg #507.

The Life of Reason; Santayana uses the maxim to distinguish purposeful activity from effort that has lost its governing end.

Laches, around Stephanus 194e–195a, Benjamin Jowett English, Project Gutenberg #1584. Nicias speaks to Laches after Socrates invites an alternative to Laches’s endurance account; subsequent questioning probes the scope of knowledge about fear and hope and leaves the inquiry unresolved. The local dramatic speaker is Nicias, not Plato personally. The wording occurs in the dialogue body, not Jowett’s introduction.

Counsels and Maxims, T. Bailey Saunders translation; Project Gutenberg #10715. The following geometric analogy describes life as the resultant of circumstances and aims.

The Simple Life, Chapter V, “Simple Duty,” Mary Louise Hendee translation, Project Gutenberg #23092; the phrase condenses his argument about nearby obligations.

Dhammapada 163 in Max Müller’s translation; the verse contrasts actions harmful to oneself with the harder work of choosing what is beneficial and good.

Essays of Montaigne, Book I, Chapter XXIII, ‘Various Events from the Same Counsel,’ Charles Cotton translation edited by William Carew Hazlitt (1877); Project Gutenberg Volume 04 #3584 / Complete Essays #3600. Montaigne argues that excessive security-minded distrust can destroy the courage required for noble action; the reviewed direct evidence is the matching Wikisource chapter transcription.

Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook. The sentence continues by connecting repeated exercises of attention and intelligence with development; it is Montessori’s pedagogical rationale for the material.

Hopes and Fears for Art, lecture “The Beauty of Life”; Project Gutenberg #3773. Morris presents this as a design and household principle inside a larger social argument.

Meditations, Book VI, section 54, in a public-domain English translation.

Civil Disobedience, first published in 1849 as 'Resistance to Civil Government'; reviewed in the public-domain Miscellanies transcription. The obligation-to-do-right sentence occurs early in Thoreau's argument contrasting conscience with automatic deference to majority rule and law. It remains historical political philosophy rather than current legal advice or a blanket instruction to violate law.

Democracy: An American Novel, represented by Project Gutenberg #2815. Senator Silas Ratcliffe says this to Madeleine Lee while defending questionable acts in his political career. It is fictional character dialogue in Adams’s political novel, not Adams speaking autobiographically or prescribing political conduct.

Dhammapada 166, Chapter XII “Self,” Max Müller translation; the teaching closes the chapter by returning attention to one’s own discerned duty.

Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays, within Russell’s philosophical discussion of human value and the world. The line is preserved as ethical argument rather than converted into a promise that circumstances are controllable.

The Art of Money Getting, economy discussion; Project Gutenberg #8581. The road metaphor appears in Barnum’s warning against living fully up to one’s means.

Nicomachean Ethics, Book II, Chapter VI; the public-domain English translation defines virtue through deliberate choice and the relative mean.

Letter 71 discusses the highest good and the need for a consistent standard behind plans and action.

Of Peace of Mind, section VI, Aubrey Stewart translation (1889), cross-checked against Project Gutenberg #64576 and Wikisource. Seneca orders practical deliberation as an examination of oneself, the proposed business, and the people for whose sake or in whose company it will be done.

The novel contrasts outside pressure with the value of attending to one’s own judgment.

Discourses of Epictetus, Book II, Chapter I, “That confidence (courage) is not inconsistent with caution,” George Long translation; 1877 George Bell & Sons witness on Wikisource, cross-checked against Project Gutenberg #10661. Epictetus distinguishes confidence toward externals from moral caution in the use of one’s own will.

The Subjection of Women (1869), Chapter I, printed page 48, Project Gutenberg #27083. Mill argues that questions about women’s capacities and vocations should be decided by women’s own experience and use of their faculties rather than imposed in advance by men.

Common Sense (1776), “Of the Origin and Design of Government in general,” validated Wikisource scan leaf 13. Paine distinguishes voluntary society from coercive government and calls government even in its best state a necessary evil.

The Will to Believe, essay “The Dilemma of Determinism”; Project Gutenberg #26659. This is a philosophical argument about free will, not an empirical proof that metaphysical freedom has been established.

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman; the passage rejects a separate moral standard built around sex rather than shared human duties.

Self-Made Men, in the section considering criticisms of successful self-educated people. This wording follows the Teaching American History transcript (1872 editorial date). Douglass delivered and revised the lecture over time; the precise wording is tied to this transcript and should not be silently projected onto every manuscript version.

Dhammapada 157, Chapter XII “Self,” in Max Müller’s translation; the verse explicitly joins self-regard with watchfulness and ethical discipline.

Moby Dick; Or, The Whale, Chapter 1, “Loomings,” represented by Project Gutenberg #2701. Ishmael describes going to sea when his mood becomes grim, restless and drawn toward death imagery. The passage is fictional first-person narration and a literary coping pattern, not mental-health, suicide-prevention or medical advice.

Poems of Optimism, “The Winds of Fate,” first published in this collection in 1913; Project Gutenberg #7421. The statement is metaphorical poetry about agency, not a denial of material constraints or unequal circumstances.

The Kingdom of God Is Within You, Chapter XII; Constance Garnett translation, Project Gutenberg #43302. In the concluding chapter Tolstoy locates human freedom in the recognition or rejection of truth already revealed to conscience; the sentence states that freedom lies in this choice.

Poor Richard’s Almanack for 1736; Franklin uses a short contrast to emphasize the persistence of financial obligations.

On Liberty, Chapter III; Mill contrasts imitation with actively choosing one’s own plan of life.

Pudd’nhead Wilson, Calendar epigraph; the stock-market joke follows the reflection on disagreeable people.

Henry IV, Part 2, Act III Scene 1; reviewed against the 1921 Yale Shakespeare edition edited by Samuel B. Hemingway. King Henry speaks the crown line at the close of his sleepless midnight monologue after contrasting his wakefulness with the sleep of poor subjects and the storm-tossed ship-boy. It remains dramatic kingship rhetoric rather than clinical evidence about leadership stress.

Enchiridion, section X, George Long translation; Epictetus gives examples such as endurance under pain and patience under abuse.

Julius Caesar, Act IV, Scene 3, in the 1919 Yale Shakespeare edition edited by Lawrence Mason. Brutus argues for marching to Philippi and compares opportunity to a tide that must be taken at the flood; the metaphor belongs to a disputed military decision inside the play rather than a context-free guarantee of success.

As a Man Thinketh, chapter “Thought and Purpose,” in the authorized edition.

Pudd’nhead Wilson, Chapter I epigraph; one of the fictional Calendar maxims Twain places before the chapter.

The Art of War, Chapter IV 'Tactical Dispositions,' section 1, Lionel Giles translation (1910), original scan leaf 82. The sentence about good fighters first making themselves secure against defeat opens the chapter's tactical argument; it remains ancient military-strategy reasoning rather than a universal self-help rule.

The Way to Wealth, frugality section; Project Gutenberg #43855. The maxim introduces Franklin’s distinction between apparent cheapness and genuine value.

Dhammapada 165, Chapter XII “Self,” Max Müller translation; “purity” is religious-ethical language from the source, not a claim about personal worth or bodily purity.

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 3, “On True and False Friendship,” Richard M. Gummere translation.

Character Building, “What Will Pay?”, Project Gutenberg #60484. Washington reports a discussion of honesty in business and uses conscience as a practical test of conduct; the sentence belongs to that address’s argument that dishonest dealing does not pay.