Early 20th Century

Erich Fromm

Psychology

Frankfurt School

1900–1980

"To hope means to be ready at every moment for that which is not yet born, and yet not become desperate if there is no birth in our lifetime."

🇫🇷Elie Munk

Religion

1900–1981

"A ladder is the instrument of ascent; it symbolises intensity rising to a climax. this, too, is the meaning of prayer."

🇺🇸Thomas Wolfe

Literature

1900–1938

"The exquisite smell of the south, clean but funky, like a big woman."

🇺🇸Zelda Fitzgerald

Literature

1900–1948

"Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold."

🇺🇸Helen Hayes

Politics

1900–1993

"Actors cannot choose the manner in which they are born. Consequently, it is the one gesture in their lives completely devoid of self-consciousness."

🇺🇸Theodosius Dobzhansky

Science

1900–1975

"The greatest evolutionist of our century."

"There is no single cause for any disturbance of the total organism, whether this be expressed as a behavior pattern often labeled psychiatric entity, or a physical disturbance classified as a somatic disease."

🇮🇹Ignazio Silone

Politics

1900–1978

"Political regimes come and go, but bad habits endure."

🇺🇸Adlai Stevenson II

Politics

1900–1965

"Men may be born free; they cannot be born wise; and it is the duty of the university to make the free wise."

🇫🇷Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Literature

1900–1944

"That is the hardest thing of all. It is much harder to judge yourself than to judge others. If you succeed in judging yourself, it's because you're truly a wise man."

🇪🇸Luis Buñuel

Entertainment

Surrealism

1900–1983

"In the name of Hippocrates, doctors have invented the most exquisite form of torture ever known to man: survival."

🇬🇧Dennis Gabor

Science

1900–1979

"The future cannot be predicted, but futures can be invented. It was man's ability to invent which has made human society what it is."

🇩🇪Hans-Georg Gadamer

Philosophy

1900–2002

"Understanding does not occur when we try to intercept what someone wants to say to us by claiming we already know it."

🇺🇸Howard H. Aiken

Science

1900–1973

"Originally one thought that if there were a half dozen large computers in this country, hidden away in research laboratories, this would take care of all requirements we had throughout the country."

🇩🇪Karl Wolff

Military

1900–1984

"If you repeat to the Führer the story of the radio message from your agent, I won't go to the gallows alone. You and the Reichsführer will hang beside me."

"There is no depth of life without a way to depth, no truth without a way to truth."

🇨🇳Bing Xin

Literature

1900–1999

"Forget whatever should be forgotten, so that you can remember what should be remembered."

"The rage for railroads is so great that many will be laid in parts where they will not pay."

"A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit."

"People make mistakes in life through believing too much, but they have a damned dull time if they believe too little."

🇺🇸S.L.A. Marshall

Military

1900–1977

"The first duty of the officer is to challenge whatever seems illusory."

"God has created the human frame for the express purpose of giving man the opportunity of realizing the Divinity."

Heinrich Himmler

Politics

1900–1945

"I don't want to hear anymore of your difficulties. For an SS officer there are no difficulties; his duty is always to remove difficulties himself as soon as they arise. How you do it is for you to figure out, not me."

"The administrative function comes easily to conservatives for the principal requirement of administration is unquestioning conformity to the standards embodied by the particular institution."

"Some Muslim scholars argue that the concept of Democracy is not compatible with the concept of an Islamic state. But of course it is and the Quran outlines the essence of Democracy."

🇩🇪Heinrich Müller (Gestapo)

Entertainment

1900–1945

"We know the Russian methods exactly. I haven't the faintest intention of being taken prisoner by the Russians."

🇬🇷Giorgos Seferis

Politics

Thirties Generation

1900–1971

"Don't ask me who's influenced me. A lion is made up of the lambs he's digested, and I've been reading all my life."

🇬🇧Gilbert Ryle

Philosophy

1900–1976

"A myth is, of course, not a fairy story. It is the presentation of facts belonging to one category in the idioms appropriate to another. To explode a myth is accordingly not to deny the facts but to re-allocate them."

🇫🇷Antoine de Saint Exupéry

Literature

1900–1944

"Your task is not to foresee the future, but to enable it."

🇬🇧Stephen Potter

Literature

1900–1969

"Talk of the "imperial decay" of your invalid port. "Its gracious withdrawal from perfection, keeping a hint of former majesty withal, as it hovers between oblivion and the divine Untergang of infinite recession."