union quotes

The proper union of gin and vermouth is a great and sudden glory; it is one of the happiest marriages on earth, and one of the shortest lived.

- Bernard DeVoto
  In Harper's Magazine, Dec.

We have counted the cost of this contest, and find nothing so dreadful as voluntary slavery† Our cause is just, our union is perfect.

-John Dickinson
  Declaration of reasons for taking up arms against Britain, 8  Jul, presented to Congress. Quoted in C  J Stille The Life and Times of John Dickinson (1891), ch.5.

Here the impossible union Of spheres of existence is actual, Here the past and future Are conquered, and reconciled.

-T(homas) S(tearns) Eliot
Four Quartets,'The Dry Salvages', pt.5.

She hears the ocean protesting against separation, but she hears the sea protesting against union. She follows therefore her physical destination when she protests against the two situations, both equally unnatural separation and union.

- Henry Grattan
Of Ireland. Quoted in Conor Cruise O'Brien Parnell and His Party (1957).

Weaponsgrow rusty if unused, and a Union which never strikes may lose the ability to organise a formidable strike, so that its threats become less effective.

- SirJohn Richard Hicks
  The Theory of  Wages (2nd edn).

DerVerstand vermag nichts anzuschauen, und die Sinne nichts zu denken. Nur daraus, dass sie sich vereinigen, kann Erkenntnis entspringen. The understanding can intuit nothing, the senses can think nothing.Only through their union can knowledge arise.

- Immanuel Kant
Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Critique of Pure Reason), B75 (translated by N Kemp Smith).

All forms of government fall when it comes up to the question of breadbread for the family, something to eat.Bread to a manwith a family comes firstbefore his union, before his citizenship, before his church affiliation. Bread!

-John L(lewellyn) Lewis
  In the Saturday Evening Post,12 Oct.

'A house divided against itself cannot stand': I believe that this Government cannot endure permanently half- slave and half-free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved. I do not expect the house to fallbut I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.

- Abraham Lincoln
  Speech, Springfield,16  Jun.

Thou, too, sail on,O Ship of State! Sail on,O UNION, strong and great! Humanity with all its fears, With all the hopes of future years, Is hanging breathless on thy fate!

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
  The Seaside and Fireside,'The Building of the Ship', l.377^81.

There are three bodies no sensible man directly challenges: the Roman Catholic Church, the Brigade of Guards, and the National Union of Mineworkers.

-Stockton
  In the Observer, 22 Feb.

Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions, since no definite answerscan, asa rule, be knowntobetrue, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves; because these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our intellectual imagination, and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation; but above all because, through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind also is rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good.

- Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
  The Problems of Philosophy, ch.14.

We had better remain in union with England, even at the risk of becoming a subordinate species of Northumberland, as far as national consequence is concerned, than remedy ourselves by even hinting the possibility of a rupture. But there is no harm in wishing Scotland tohavejust somuchill-nature, according toher own proverb, as may keep her good-nature from being abused.

- Sir Walter Scott
  Letters of Malachi Malagrowther on the Proposed Change of Currency, letter1.

  We are constantly thinking of the great war†which saved the Union†but it was awar whichdid a great deal more than that. It created in this country what had never existed beforea national consciousness.

- (Thomas) Woodrow Wilson
  Memorial DayAddress at Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia, 31 May.