Famous quotes containing the words fields, spheres and/or numbers:
“It matters little comparatively whether the fields fill the farmer’s barn. The true husbandman will cease from anxiety, as the squirrels manifest no concern whether the woods will bear chestnuts this year or not, and finish his labor with every day, relinquishing all claim to the produce of his fields, and sacrificing in his mind not only his first but his last fruits also.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The world has already learned that woman has other virtues than meekness, patience, humility and endurance. She possesses courage above all fear, and a will that knows no obstacles; and when these are called forth by some great emergency, false modesty is trampled in the dust, and spheres are scattered to the winds.”
—A. Holley, U.S. women’s magazine contributor. The Lily, p. 38 (May 1852)
“The principle of majority rule is the mildest form in which the force of numbers can be exercised. It is a pacific substitute for civil war in which the opposing armies are counted and the victory is awarded to the larger before any blood is shed. Except in the sacred tests of democracy and in the incantations of the orators, we hardly take the trouble to pretend that the rule of the majority is not at bottom a rule of force.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)