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Edwin Abbott Abbott

Edwin Abbott Abbott (20 December 1838 – 12 October 1926) was an English schoolmaster and theologian, most famous as the author of the social satire Flatland (1884), widely noted for its use of mathematical dimensions in religious and political allegories.

Quotes

There is nothing contrary to history and historical development in the belief that Christ taught this doctrine — of self-sacrifice, or losing the soul, of giving the soul as a ransom for others, or drawing out the soul to those in need of help.
 * When our Lord uttered (or implied) the words "Do this in remembrance of me," He meant "Do as I am doing." And what He was doing was not a mere "dealing" of "bread" but a "drawing out" of the "soul." This view does not deny that He also contemplated a continuous celebration of the evening meal of thanksgiving in future generations; but it asserts something more, namely, that He meant a spiritual act, "'Draw out your souls' to one another, and for one another, according to your ability, even as I give my soul, my complete self, delivering it up to you as a gift, and for you as a sacrifice."
 * Paradosis : Or "In the Night in Which He Was Betrayed" (1904), "Introduction : Paradosis or Delivering Up the Soul", p. 6

 * Never shall we apprehend the nature of true divinity nor the true divineness of Jesus of Nazareth, the Carpenter's Son, till we learn to moralize our theology, training ourselves to lay less stress on "Almighty" — an epithet characteristic of the silver age of Hebrew literature and of our Anglican Prayer Book, but never once used as an epithet of God by Him who knew Him as He is. By way of compensation, we must lay far more stress on "Wise" and "Good."
 * Paradosis : Or "In the Night in Which He Was Betrayed" (1904), "Introduction : Paradosis or Delivering Up the Soul", p. 7

 * The Fourth Gospel is admitted by all Greek scholars to be, in parts, extraordinarily obscure. No honest writer of history is obscure, as a rule, except through carelessness or ignorance — ignorance, it may be, of the art of writing, or of the subject he is writing about, or of the persons he is addressing, or of the words he is using, but, in any case, ignorance of something. But an honest writer of poetry or prophecy may be consciously obscure because a message, so to speak, has come into his mind in a certain form, and he feels this likely to prove the best form — ultimately, when his readers have thought about it.
 * Johannine Grammar (1906), p. 5

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (1884)
To The Inhabitants of SPACE IN GENERAL And H. C. IN PARTICULAR This Work is Dedicated By a Humble Native of Flatland In the Hope that Even as he was Initiated into the Mysteries Of THREE Dimensions Having been previously conversant With ONLY TWO So the Citizens of that Celestial Region May aspire yet higher and higher To the Secrets of FOUR FIVE OR EVEN SIX Dimensions Thereby contributing To the Enlargement of THE IMAGINATION And the possible Development Of that most rare and excellent Gift of MODESTY Among the Superior Races Of SOLID HUMANITY

 * Suppose a person of the Fourth Dimension, condescending to visit you, were to say, 'Whenever you open your eyes, you see a Plane (which is of Two Dimensions) and you INFER a Solid (which is of Three); but in reality you also see (though you do not recognize) a Fourth Dimension, which is not colour nor brightness nor anything of the kind, but a true Dimension, although I cannot point out to you its direction, nor can you possibly measure it.' What would you say to such a visitor? Would not you have him locked up? Well, that is my fate: and it is as natural for us Flatlanders to lock up a Square for preaching the Third Dimension, as it is for you Spacelanders to lock up a Cube for preaching the Fourth. Alas, how strong a family likeness runs through blind and persecuting humanity in all Dimensions! Points, Lines, Squares, Cubes, Extra-Cubes — we are all liable to the same errors, all alike the Slaves of our respective Dimensional prejudices, as one of your Spaceland poets has said —      'One touch of Nature makes all worlds akin.'
 * Preface to the Second and Revised Edition (1884)

 * While doing justice to the intellectual power with which a few Circles have for many generations maintained their supremacy over immense multitudes of their countrymen, he believes that the facts of Flatland, speaking for themselves without comment on his part, declare that Revolutions cannot always be suppressed by slaughter, and that Nature, in sentencing the Circles to infecundity, has condemned them to ultimate failure — "and herein," he says, "I see a fulfilment of the great Law of all worlds, that while the wisdom of Man thinks it is working one thing, the wisdom of Nature constrains it to work another, and quite a different and far better thing." For the rest, he begs his readers not to suppose that every minute detail in the daily life of Flatland must needs correspond to some other detail in Spaceland; and yet he hopes that, taken as a whole, his work may prove suggestive as well as amusing, to those Spacelanders of moderate and modest minds who — speaking of that which is of the highest importance, but lies beyond experience — decline to say on the one hand, "This can never be," and on the other hand, "It must needs be precisely thus, and we know all about it."
 * Preface to the Second and Revised Edition (1884)

PART I: THIS WORLD

 * I call our world Flatland, not because we call it so, but to make its nature clearer to you, my happy readers, who are privileged to live in Space. Imagine a vast sheet of paper on which straight Lines, Triangles, Squares, Pentagons, Hexagons, and other figures, instead of remaining fixed in their places, move freely about, on or in the surface, but without the power of rising above or sinking below it, very much like shadows — only hard and with luminous edges — and you will then have a pretty correct notion of my country and countrymen. Alas, a few years ago, I should have said "my universe": but now my mind has been opened to higher views of things.
 * Chapter 1. Of the Nature of Flatland

 * It was in old days, with our learned men, an interesting and oft-investigated question, "What is the origin of light?" and the solution of it has been repeatedly attempted, with no other result than to crowd our lunatic asylums with the would-be solvers. Hence, after fruitless attempts to suppress such investigations indirectly by making them liable to a heavy tax, the Legislature, in comparatively recent times, absolutely prohibited them.
 * Chapter 2. Of the Climate and Houses in Flatland

 * Had the acute-angled rabble been all, without exception, absolutely destitute of hope and of ambition, they might have found leaders in some of their many seditious outbreaks, so able as to render their superior numbers and strength too much even for the wisdom of the Circles. But a wise ordinance of Nature has decreed that, in proportion as the working-classes increase in intelligence, knowledge, and all virtue, in that same proportion their acute angle (which makes them physically terrible) shall increase also and approximate to the comparatively harmless angle of the Equilateral Triangle. Thus, in the most brutal and formidable of the soldier class — creatures almost on a level with women in their lack of intelligence — it is found that, as they wax in the mental ability necessary to employ their tremendous penetrating power to advantage, so do they wane in the power of penetration itself. How admirable is this Law of Compensation! And how perfect a proof of the natural fitness and, I may almost say, the divine origin of the aristocratic constitution of the States in Flatland! By a judicious use of this Law of Nature, the Polygons and Circles are almost always able to stifle sedition in its very cradle, taking advantage of the irrepressible and boundless hopefulness of the human mind. Art also comes to the aid of Law and Order. It is generally found possible — by a little artificial compression or expansion on the part of the State physicians — to make some of the more intelligent leaders of a rebellion perfectly Regular, and to admit them at once into the privileged classes; a much larger number, who are still below the standard, allured by the prospect of being ultimately ennobled, are induced to enter the State Hospitals, where they are kept in honourable confinement for life; one or two alone of the more obstinate, foolish, and hopelessly irregular are led to execution.
 * Chapter 3. Concerning the Inhabitants of Flatland

 * If our highly pointed Triangles of the Soldier class are formidable, it may be readily inferred that far more formidable are our Women. For if a Soldier is a wedge, a Woman is a needle; being, so to speak, ALL point, at least at the two extremities. Add to this the power of making herself practically invisible at will, and you will perceive that a Female, in Flatland, is a creature by no means to be trifled with.
 * Chapter 4. Concerning the Women

 * The dangers to which we are exposed from our Women must now be manifest to the meanest capacity in Spaceland. If even the angle of a respectable Triangle in the middle class is not without its dangers; if to run against a Working Man involves a gash; if collision with an officer of the military class necessitates a serious wound; if a mere touch from the vertex of a Private Soldier brings with it danger of death; — what can it be to run against a Woman, except absolute and immediate destruction? And when a Woman is invisible, or visible only as a dim sub-lustrous point, how difficult must it be, even for the most cautious, always to avoid collision!
 * Chapter 4. Concerning the Women

 * On the whole we get on pretty smoothly in our domestic relations, except in the lower strata of the Military Classes. There the want of tact and discretion on the part of the husbands produces at times indescribable disasters. Relying too much on the offensive weapons of their acute angles instead of the defensive organs of good sense and seasonable simulation, these reckless creatures too often neglect the prescribed construction of the women's apartments, or irritate their wives by ill-advised expressions out of doors, which they refuse immediately to retract. Moreover a blunt and stolid regard for literal truth indisposes them to make those lavish promises by which the more judicious Circle can in a moment pacify his consort. The result is massacre; not, however, without its advantages, as it eliminates the more brutal and troublesome of the Isosceles; and by many of our Circles the destructiveness of the Thinner Sex is regarded as one among many providential arrangements for suppressing redundant population, and nipping Revolution in the bud. Yet even in our best regulated and most approximately Circular families I cannot say that the ideal of family life is so high as with you in Spaceland. There is peace, in so far as the absence of slaughter may be called by that name, but there is necessarily little harmony of tastes or pursuits; and the cautious wisdom of the Circles has ensured safety at the cost of domestic comfort.
 * Chapter 4. Concerning the Women

 * To my readers in Spaceland the condition of our Women may seem truly deplorable, and so indeed it is. A Male of the lowest type of the Isosceles may look forward to some improvement of his angle, and to the ultimate elevation of the whole of his degraded caste; but no Woman can entertain such hopes for her sex. "Once a Woman, always a Woman" is a Decree of Nature; and the very Laws of Evolution seem suspended in her disfavour. Yet at least we can admire the wise Prearrangement which has ordained that, as they have no hopes, so they shall have no memory to recall, and no forethought to anticipate, the miseries and humiliations which are at once a necessity of their existence and the basis of the constitution of Flatland.
 * Chapter 4. Concerning the Women

 * You, who are blessed with shade as well as light, you, who are gifted with two eyes, endowed with a knowledge of perspective, and charmed with the enjoyment of various colours, you, who can actually SEE an angle, and contemplate the complete circumference of a circle in the happy region of the Three Dimensions — how shall I make clear to you the extreme difficulty which we in Flatland experience in recognizing one another's configuration? Recall what I told you above. All beings in Flatland, animate or inanimate, no matter what their form, present TO OUR VIEW the same, or nearly the same, appearance, viz. that of a straight Line. How then can one be distinguished from another, where all appear the same?
 * Chapter 5. Of Our Methods of Recognizing One Another

 * Though we cannot SEE angles, we can INFER them, and this with great precision. Our sense of touch, stimulated by necessity, and developed by long training, enables us to distinguish angles far more accurately than your sense of sight, when unaided by a rule or measure of angles.
 * Chapter 5. Of Our Methods of Recognizing One Another

 * Nature herself supplies us with an ascending scale or Alphabet of angles for half a degree up to 60 degrees, Specimens of which are placed in every Elementary School throughout the land. Owing to occasional retrogressions, to still more frequent moral and intellectual stagnation, and to the extraordinary fecundity of the Criminal and Vagabond Classes, there is always a vast superfluity of individuals of the half degree and single degree class, and a fair abundance of Specimens up to 10 degrees. These are absolutely destitute of civic rights; and a great number of them, not having even intelligence enough for the purposes of warfare, are devoted by the States to the service of education. Fettered immovably so as to remove all possibility of danger, they are placed in the class rooms of our Infant Schools, and there they are utilized by the Board of Education for the purpose of imparting to the offspring of the Middle Classes that tact and intelligence of which these wretched creatures themselves are utterly devoid.
 * Chapter 5. Of Our Methods of Recognizing One Another

 * Expediency therefore concurs with Nature in stamping the seal of its approval upon Regularity of conformation.
 * Chapter 7. Concerning Irregular Figures

'''Immoral, licentious, anarchical, unscientific — call them by what names you will — yet, from an aesthetic point of view, those ancient days of the Colour Revolt were the glorious childhood of Art in Flatland — a childhood, alas, that never ripened into manhood, nor even reached the blossom of youth. To live was then in itself a delight, because living implied seeing.'''
 * When all others had succumbed to the fascinations of corporal decoration, the Priests and the Women alone still remained pure from the pollution of paint.
 * Chapter 8. Of the Ancient Practice of Painting

 * An illustrious Circle, overcome by the artistic beauty of the forces under his command, threw aside his marshal's baton and his royal crown, exclaiming that he henceforth exchanged them for the artist's pencil. How great and glorious the sensuous development of these days must have been is in part indicated by the very language and vocabulary of the period. The commonest utterances of the commonest citizens in the time of the Colour Revolt seem to have been suffused with a richer tinge of word or thought; and to that era we are even now indebted for our finest poetry and for whatever rhythm still remains in the more scientific utterance of these modern days.
 * Chapter 8. Of the Ancient Practice of Painting

 * The Art of Sight Recognition, being no longer needed, was no longer practised; and the studies of Geometry, Statics, Kinetics, and other kindred subjects, came soon to be considered superfluous, and fell into disrespect and neglect even at our University. The inferior Art of Feeling speedily experienced the same fate at our Elementary Schools.... Year by year the Soldiers and Artisans began more vehemently to assert — and with increasing truth — that there was no great difference between them and the very highest class of Polygons, now that they were raised to an equality with the latter, and enabled to grapple with all the difficulties and solve all the problems of life, whether Statical or Kinetical, by the simple process of Colour Recognition. Not content with the natural neglect into which Sight Recognition was falling, they began boldly to demand the legal prohibition of all "monopolizing and aristocratic Arts" and the consequent abolition of all endowments for the studies of Sight Recognition, Mathematics, and Feeling. Soon, they began to insist that inasmuch as Colour, which was a second Nature, had destroyed the need of aristocratic distinctions, the Law should follow in the same path, and that henceforth all individuals and all classes should be recognized as absolutely equal and entitled to equal rights.
 * Chapter 9. Of the Universal Colour Bill

 * The agitation for the Universal Colour Bill continued for three years; and up to the last moment of that period it seemed as though Anarchy were destined to triumph. A whole army of Polygons, who turned out to fight as private soldiers, was utterly annihilated by a superior force of Isosceles Triangles — the Squares and Pentagons meanwhile remaining neutral. Worse than all, some of the ablest Circles fell a prey to conjugal fury. Infuriated by political animosity, the wives in many a noble household wearied their lords with prayers to give up their opposition to the Colour Bill; and some, finding their entreaties fruitless, fell on and slaughtered their innocent children and husband, perishing themselves in the act of carnage. It is recorded that during that triennial agitation no less than twenty-three Circles perished in domestic discord.  Great indeed was the peril. It seemed as though the Priests had no choice between submission and extermination; when suddenly the course of events was completely changed by one of those picturesque incidents which Statesmen ought never to neglect, often to anticipate, and sometimes perhaps to originate, because of the absurdly disproportionate power with which they appeal to the sympathies of the populace.
 * Chapter 10. Of the Suppression of the Chromatic Sedition

 * The use of Colour was abolished, and its possession prohibited. Even the utterance of any word denoting Colour, except by the Circles or by qualified scientific teachers, was punished by a severe penalty. Only at our University in some of the very highest and most esoteric classes — which I myself have never been privileged to attend — it is understood that the sparing use of Colour is still sanctioned for the purpose of illustrating some of the deeper problems of mathematics. But of this I can only speak from hearsay. Elsewhere in Flatland, Colour is now non-existent. The art of making it is known to only one living person, the Chief Circle for the time being; and by him it is handed down on his death-bed to none but his Successor. One manufactory alone produces it; and, lest the secret should be betrayed, the Workmen are annually consumed, and fresh ones introduced. So great is the terror with which even now our Aristocracy looks back to the far-distant days of the agitation for the Universal Colour Bill.
 * Chapter 10. Of the Suppression of the Chromatic Sedition

 * It is high time that I should pass from these brief and discursive notes about things in Flatland to the central event of this book, my initiation into the mysteries of Space. THAT is my subject; all that has gone before is merely preface.
 * Chapter 11. Concerning our Priests

 * With us, our Priests are Administrators of all Business, Art, and Science; Directors of Trade, Commerce, Generalship, Architecture, Engineering, Education, Statesmanship, Legislature, Morality, Theology; doing nothing themselves, they are the Causes of everything worth doing, that is done by others. Although popularly everyone called a Circle is deemed a Circle, yet among the better educated Classes it is known that no Circle is really a Circle, but only a Polygon with a very large number of very small sides. As the number of the sides increases, a Polygon approximates to a Circle; and, when the number is very great indeed, say for example three or four hundred, it is extremely difficult for the most delicate touch to feel any polygonal angles. Let me say rather, it WOULD be difficult: for, as I have shown above, Recognition by Feeling is unknown among the highest society, and to FEEL a Circle would be considered a most audacious insult. This habit of abstention from Feeling in the best society enables a Circle the more easily to sustain the veil of mystery in which, from his earliest years, he is wont to enwrap the exact nature of his Perimeter or Circumference.
 * Chapter 11. Concerning our Priests

 * As to the doctrine of the Circles it may briefly be summed up in a single maxim, "Attend to your Configuration." Whether political, ecclesiastical, or moral, all their teaching has for its object the improvement of individual and collective Configuration — with special reference of course to the Configuration of the Circles, to which all other objects are subordinated. It is the merit of the Circles that they have effectually suppressed those ancient heresies which led men to waste energy and sympathy in the vain belief that conduct depends upon will, effort, training, encouragement, praise, or anything else but Configuration.
 * Chapter 12. Of the Doctrine of our Priests

 * For my own part, I find it best to assume that a good sound scolding or castigation has some latent and strengthening influence on my Grandson's Configuration; though I own that I have no grounds for thinking so. At all events I am not alone in my way of extricating myself from this dilemma; for I find that many of the highest Circles, sitting as Judges in law courts, use praise and blame towards Regular and Irregular Figures; and in their homes I know by experience that, when scolding their children, they speak about "right" or "wrong" as vehemently and passionately as if they believed that these names represented real existences, and that a human Figure is really capable of choosing between them. Constantly carrying out their policy of making Configuration the leading idea in every mind, the Circles reverse the nature of that Commandment which in Spaceland regulates the relations between parents and children. With you, children are taught to honour their parents; with us — next to the Circles, who are the chief object of universal homage — a man is taught to honour his Grandson, if he has one; or, if not, his Son. By "honour", however, is by no means meant "indulgence", but a reverent regard for their highest interests: and the Circles teach that the duty of fathers is to subordinate their own interests to those of posterity, thereby advancing the welfare of the whole State as well as that of their own immediate descendants.
 * Chapter 12. Of the Doctrine of our Priests

 * The weak point in the system of the Circles — if a humble Square may venture to speak of anything Circular as containing any element of weakness — appears to me to be found in their relations with Women.
 * Chapter 12. Of the Doctrine of our Priests

 * About three hundred years ago, it was decreed by the Chief Circle that, since women are deficient in Reason but abundant in Emotion, they ought no longer to be treated as rational, nor receive any mental education. The consequence was that they were no longer taught to read, nor even to master Arithmetic enough to enable them to count the angles of their husband or children; and hence they sensibly declined during each generation in intellectual power. And this system of female non-education or quietism still prevails. My fear is that, with the best intentions, this policy has been carried so far as to react injuriously on the Male Sex.  For the consequence is that, as things now are, we Males have to lead a kind of bi-lingual, and I may almost say bi-mental, existence. With Women, we speak of "love", "duty", "right", "wrong", "pity", "hope", and other irrational and emotional conceptions, which have no existence, and the fiction of which has no object except to control feminine exuberances; but among ourselves, and in our books, we have an entirely different vocabulary and I may almost say, idiom. "Love" then becomes "the anticipation of benefits"; "duty" becomes "necessity" or "fitness"; and other words are correspondingly transmuted. Moreover, among Women, we use language implying the utmost deference for their Sex; and they fully believe that the Chief Circle Himself is not more devoutly adored by us than they are: but behind their backs they are both regarded and spoken of — by all except the very young — as being little better than "mindless organisms".
 * Chapter 12. Of the Doctrine of our Priests

 * Now my humble fear is that this double training, in language as well as in thought, imposes somewhat too heavy a burden upon the young, especially when, at the age of three years old, they are taken from the maternal care and taught to unlearn the old language — except for the purpose of repeating it in the presence of their Mothers and Nurses — and to learn the vocabulary and idiom of science. Already methinks I discern a weakness in the grasp of mathematical truth at the present time as compared with the more robust intellect of our ancestors three hundred years ago.
 * Chapter 12. Of the Doctrine of our Priests

PART II: OTHER WORLDS

 * Describing myself as a stranger I besought the King to give me some account of his dominions. But I had the greatest possible difficulty in obtaining any information on points that really interested me; for the Monarch could not refrain from constantly assuming that whatever was familiar to him must also be known to me and that I was simulating ignorance in jest. However, by persevering questions I elicited the following facts: It seemed that this poor ignorant Monarch — as he called himself — was persuaded that the Straight Line which he called his Kingdom, and in which he passed his existence, constituted the whole of the world, and indeed the whole of Space. Not being able either to move or to see, save in his Straight Line, he had no conception of anything out of it. Though he had heard my voice when I first addressed him, the sounds had come to him in a manner so contrary to his experience that he had made no answer, "seeing no man", as he expressed it, "and hearing a voice as it were from my own intestines." Until the moment when I placed my mouth in his World, he had neither seen me, nor heard anything except confused sounds beating against — what I called his side, but what he called his INSIDE or STOMACH; nor had he even now the least conception of the region from which I had come. Outside his World, or Line, all was a blank to him; nay, not even a blank, for a blank implies Space; say, rather, all was non-existent.  His subjects — of whom the small Lines were men and the Points Women — were all alike confined in motion and eye-sight to that single Straight Line, which was their World. It need scarcely be added that the whole of their horizon was limited to a Point; nor could any one ever see anything but a Point. Man, woman, child, thing — each was a Point to the eye of a Linelander. Only by the sound of the voice could sex or age be distinguished. Moreover, as each individual occupied the whole of the narrow path, so to speak, which constituted his Universe, and no one could move to the right or left to make way for passers by, it followed that no Linelander could ever pass another. Once neighbours, always neighbours. Neighbourhood with them was like marriage with us. Neighbours remained neighbours till death did them part.  Such a life, with all vision limited to a Point, and all motion to a Straight Line, seemed to me inexpressibly dreary; and I was surprised to note the vivacity and cheerfulness of the King.
 * Chapter 13. How I had a Vision of Lineland

 * Thinking that it was time to bring down the Monarch from his raptures to the level of common sense, I determined to endeavour to open up to him some glimpses of the truth, that is to say of the nature of things in Flatland.
 * Chapter 14. How I Vainly Tried to Explain the Nature of Flatland

 * Besotted Being! You think yourself the perfection of existence, while you are in reality the most imperfect and imbecile. You profess to see, whereas you can see nothing but a Point! You plume yourself on inferring the existence of a Straight Line; but I CAN SEE Straight Lines, and infer the existence of Angles, Triangles, Squares, Pentagons, Hexagons, and even Circles. Why waste more words? Suffice it that I am the completion of your incomplete self. You are a Line, but I am a Line of Lines, called in my country a Square: and even I, infinitely superior though I am to you, am of little account among the great nobles of Flatland, whence I have come to visit you, in the hope of enlightening your ignorance.
 * Chapter 14. How I Vainly Tried to Explain the Nature of Flatland

 * From dreams I proceed to facts.
 * Chapter 15. Concerning a Stranger from Spaceland

 * There I sat by my Wife's side, endeavouring to form a retrospect of the year 1999 and of the possibilities of the year 2000, but not quite able to shake off the thoughts suggested by the prattle of my bright little Hexagon. Only a few sands now remained in the half-hour glass. Rousing myself from my reverie I turned the glass Northward for the last time in the old Millennium; and in the act, I exclaimed aloud, "The boy is a fool." Straightway I became conscious of a Presence in the room, and a chilling breath thrilled through my very being. "He is no such thing," cried my Wife, "and you are breaking the Commandments in thus dishonouring your own Grandson." But I took no notice of her. Looking round in every direction I could see nothing; yet still I FELT a Presence, and shivered as the cold whisper came again. I started up. "What is the matter?" said my Wife, "there is no draught; what are you looking for? There is nothing." There was nothing; and I resumed my seat, again exclaiming, "The boy is a fool, I say; 3³ can have no meaning in Geometry." At once there came a distinctly audible reply, "The boy is not a fool; and 3³ has an obvious Geometrical meaning."
 * Chapter 15. Concerning a Stranger from Spaceland

 * Assuming her most gracious manner, my Wife advanced towards the Stranger, "Permit me, Madam, to feel and be felt by— " then, suddenly recoiling, "Oh! it is not a Woman, and there are no angles either, not a trace of one. Can it be that I have so misbehaved to a perfect Circle?"  "I am indeed, in a certain sense a Circle," replied the Voice, "and a more perfect Circle than any in Flatland; but to speak more accurately, I am many Circles in one."
 * Chapter 15. Concerning a Stranger from Spaceland

 * As soon as the sound of the Peace-cry of my departing Wife had died away, I began to approach the Stranger with the intention of taking a nearer view and of bidding him be seated: but his appearance struck me dumb and motionless with astonishment. Without the slightest symptoms of angularity he nevertheless varied every instant with gradations of size and brightness scarcely possible for any Figure within the scope of my experience. The thought flashed across me that I might have before me a burglar or cut-throat, some monstrous Irregular Isosceles, who, by feigning the voice of a Circle, had obtained admission somehow into the house, and was now preparing to stab me with his acute angle.
 * Chapter 16. How the Stranger Vainly Endeavoured to Reveal to Me in Words the Mysteries of Spaceland

 * Desperate with fear, I rushed forward with an unceremonious, "You must permit me, Sir — " and felt him. My Wife was right. There was not the trace of an angle, not the slightest roughness or inequality: never in my life had I met with a more perfect Circle. He remained motionless while I walked round him, beginning from his eye and returning to it again. Circular he was throughout, a perfectly satisfactory Circle; there could not be a doubt of it. Then followed a dialogue, which I will endeavour to set down as near as I can recollect it, omitting only some of my profuse apologies — for I was covered with shame and humiliation that I, a Square, should have been guilty of the impertinence of feeling a Circle. It was commenced by the Stranger with some impatience at the lengthiness of my introductory process. STRANGER. Have you felt me enough by this time? Are you not introduced to me yet?
 * Chapter 16. How the Stranger Vainly Endeavoured to Reveal to Me in Words the Mysteries of Spaceland

 * STRANGER. In order to see into Space you ought to have an eye, not on your Perimeter, but on your side, that is, on what you would probably call your inside; but we in Spaceland should call it your side. I. An eye in my inside! An eye in my stomach! Your Lordship jests.  STRANGER. I am in no jesting humour. I tell you that I come from Space, or, since you will not understand what Space means, from the Land of Three Dimensions whence I but lately looked down upon your Plane which you call Space forsooth. From that position of advantage I discerned all that you speak of as SOLID (by which you mean "enclosed on four sides"), your houses, your churches, your very chests and safes, yes even your insides and stomachs, all lying open and exposed to my view.  I. Such assertions are easily made, my Lord.  STRANGER. But not easily proved, you mean. But I mean to prove mine.
 * Chapter 16. How the Stranger Vainly Endeavoured to Reveal to Me in Words the Mysteries of Spaceland

 * The very fact that a Line is visible implies that it possesses yet another Dimension.
 * Chapter 16. How the Stranger Vainly Endeavoured to Reveal to Me in Words the Mysteries of Spaceland

 * You are living on a Plane. What you style Flatland is the vast level surface of what I may call a fluid, on, or in, the top of which you and your countrymen move about, without rising above it or falling below it. I am not a plane Figure, but a Solid. You call me a Circle; but in reality I am not a Circle, but an infinite number of Circles, of size varying from a Point to a Circle of thirteen inches in diameter, one placed on the top of the other. When I cut through your plane as I am now doing, I make in your plane a section which you, very rightly, call a Circle. For even a Sphere — which is my proper name in my own country — if he manifest himself at all to an inhabitant of Flatland — must needs manifest himself as a Circle.  Do you not remember — for I, who see all things, discerned last night the phantasmal vision of Lineland written upon your brain — do you not remember, I say, how, when you entered the realm of Lineland, you were compelled to manifest yourself to the King, not as a Square, but as a Line, because that Linear Realm had not Dimensions enough to represent the whole of you, but only a slice or section of you? In precisely the same way, your country of Two Dimensions is not spacious enough to represent me, a being of Three, but can only exhibit a slice or section of me, which is what you call a Circle.  The diminished brightness of your eye indicates incredulity. But now prepare to receive proof positive of the truth of my assertions. You cannot indeed see more than one of my sections, or Circles, at a time; for you have no power to raise your eye out of the plane of Flatland; but you can at least see that, as I rise in Space, so my sections become smaller. See now, I will rise; and the effect upon your eye will be that my Circle will become smaller and smaller till it dwindles to a point and finally vanishes.  There was no "rising" that I could see; but he diminished and finally vanished. I winked once or twice to make sure that I was not dreaming. But it was no dream. For from the depths of nowhere came forth a hollow voice — close to my heart it seemed — "Am I quite gone? Are you convinced now? Well, now I will gradually return to Flatland and you shall see my section become larger and larger."  Every reader in Spaceland will easily understand that my mysterious Guest was speaking the language of truth and even of simplicity. But to me, proficient though I was in Flatland Mathematics, it was by no means a simple matter.
 * Chapter 16. How the Stranger Vainly Endeavoured to Reveal to Me in Words the Mysteries of Spaceland

 * When he regained his original size, he heaved a deep sigh; for he perceived by my silence that I had altogether failed to comprehend him. And indeed I was now inclining to the belief that he must be no Circle at all, but some extremely clever juggler; or else that the old wives' tales were true, and that after all there were such people as Enchanters and Magicians. After a long pause he muttered to himself, "One resource alone remains, if I am not to resort to action. I must try the method of Analogy."
 * Chapter 16. How the Stranger Vainly Endeavoured to Reveal to Me in Words the Mysteries of Spaceland

 * I was now under a strong temptation to rush blindly at my Visitor and to precipitate him into Space, or out of Flatland, anywhere, so that I could get rid of him...
 * Chapter 16. How the Stranger Vainly Endeavoured to Reveal to Me in Words the Mysteries of Spaceland

 * It was in vain. I brought my hardest right angle into violent collision with the Stranger, pressing on him with a force sufficient to have destroyed any ordinary Circle: but I could feel him slowly and unarrestably slipping from my contact; no edging to the right nor to the left, but moving somehow out of the world, and vanishing to nothing. Soon there was a blank. But still I heard the Intruder's voice. SPHERE. Why will you refuse to listen to reason? I had hoped to find in you — as being a man of sense and an accomplished mathematician — a fit apostle for the Gospel of the Three Dimensions, which I am allowed to preach once only in a thousand years: but now I know not how to convince you. Stay, I have it. Deeds, and not words, shall proclaim the truth.
 * Chapter 17. How the Sphere, Having in Vain Tried Words, Resorted to Deeds

 * I groaned with horror, doubting whether I was not out of my senses; but the Stranger continued: "Surely you must now see that my explanation, and no other, suits the phenomena. What you call Solid things are really superficial; what you call Space is really nothing but a great Plane. I am in Space, and look down upon the insides of the things of which you only see the outsides. You could leave this Plane yourself, if you could but summon up the necessary volition. A slight upward or downward motion would enable you to see all that I can see.
 * Chapter 17. How the Sphere, Having in Vain Tried Words, Resorted to Deeds

 * "Now I shall come back to you. And, as a crowning proof, what do you say to my giving you a touch, just the least touch, in your stomach? It will not seriously injure you, and the slight pain you may suffer cannot be compared with the mental benefit you will receive." Before I could utter a word of remonstrance, I felt a shooting pain in my inside, and a demoniacal laugh seemed to issue from within me. A moment afterwards the sharp agony had ceased, leaving nothing but a dull ache behind, and the Stranger began to reappear, saying, as he gradually increased in size, "There, I have not hurt you much, have I? If you are not convinced now, I don't know what will convince you. What say you?"  My resolution was taken. It seemed intolerable that I should endure existence subject to the arbitrary visitations of a Magician who could thus play tricks with one's very stomach. If only I could in any way manage to pin him against the wall till help came!
 * Chapter 17. How the Sphere, Having in Vain Tried Words, Resorted to Deeds

 * Back! back! Away from me, or you must go with me — whither you know not — into the Land of Three Dimensions!" "Fool! Madman! Irregular!" I exclaimed; "never will I release thee; thou shalt pay the penalty of thine impostures."  "Ha! Is it come to this?" thundered the Stranger: "then meet your fate: out of your Plane you go. Once, twice, thrice! 'Tis done!"
 * Chapter 17. How the Sphere, Having in Vain Tried Words, Resorted to Deeds

 * An unspeakable horror seized me. There was a darkness; then a dizzy, sickening sensation of sight that was not like seeing; I saw a Line that was no Line; Space that was not Space: I was myself, and not myself. When I could find voice, I shrieked aloud in agony, "Either this is madness or it is Hell." "It is neither," calmly replied the voice of the Sphere, "it is Knowledge; it is Three Dimensions: open your eye once again and try to look steadily." I looked, and, behold, a new world! There stood before me, visibly incorporate, all that I had before inferred, conjectured, dreamed, of perfect Circular beauty. What seemed the centre of the Stranger's form lay open to my view: yet I could see no heart, nor lungs, nor arteries, only a beautiful harmonious Something — for which I had no words; but you, my Readers in Spaceland, would call it the surface of the Sphere.
 * Chapter 18. How I came to Spaceland, and What I Saw There

 * Prostrating myself mentally before my Guide, I cried, "How is it, O divine ideal of consummate loveliness and wisdom that I see thy inside, and yet cannot discern thy heart, thy lungs, thy arteries, thy liver?" "What you think you see, you see not," he replied; "it is not given to you, nor to any other Being to behold my internal parts. I am of a different order of Beings from those in Flatland. Were I a Circle, you could discern my intestines, but I am a Being, composed as I told you before, of many Circles, the Many in the One, called in this country a Sphere. And, just as the outside of a Cube is a Square, so the outside of a Sphere presents the appearance of a Circle." Bewildered though I was by my Teacher's enigmatic utterance, I no longer chafed against it, but worshipped him in silent adoration. He continued, with more mildness in his voice. "Distress not yourself if you cannot at first understand the deeper mysteries of Spaceland. By degrees they will dawn upon you. Let us begin by casting back a glance at the region whence you came.
 * Chapter 18. How I came to Spaceland, and What I Saw There

 * Once more I felt myself rising through space. It was even as the Sphere had said. The further we receded from the object we beheld, the larger became the field of vision. My native city, with the interior of every house and every creature therein, lay open to my view in miniature. We mounted higher, and lo, the secrets of the earth, the depths of mines and inmost caverns of the hills, were bared before me. Awestruck at the sight of the mysteries of the earth, thus unveiled before my unworthy eye, I said to my Companion, "Behold, I am become as a God. For the wise men in our country say that to see all things, or as they express it, OMNIVIDENCE, is the attribute of God alone." There was something of scorn in the voice of my Teacher as he made answer: "Is it so indeed? Then the very pick-pockets and cut-throats of my country are to be worshiped by your wise men as being Gods: for there is not one of them that does not see as much as you see now. But trust me, your wise men are wrong."
 * Chapter 18. How I came to Spaceland, and What I Saw There

 * If a pick-pocket or a cut-throat of our country can see everything that is in your country, surely that is no reason why the pick-pocket or cut-throat should be accepted by you as a God. This omnividence, as you call it — it is not a common word in Spaceland — does it make you more just, more merciful, less selfish, more loving? Not in the least. Then how does it make you more divine? I. "More merciful, more loving!" But these are the qualities of women! And we know that a Circle is a higher Being than a Straight Line, in so far as knowledge and wisdom are more to be esteemed than mere affection.  SPHERE. '''It is not for me to classify human faculties according to merit. Yet many of the best and wisest in Spaceland think more of the affections than of the understanding, more of your despised Straight Lines than of your belauded Circles. But enough of this. Look yonder...
 * Chapter 18. How I came to Spaceland, and What I Saw There

 * "You hear your fate," said the Sphere to me, while the Council was passing for the third time the formal resolution. "Death or imprisonment awaits the Apostle of the Gospel of Three Dimensions." "Not so," replied I, "the matter is now so clear to me, the nature of real space so palpable, that methinks I could make a child understand it. Permit me but to descend at this moment and enlighten them." "Not yet," said my Guide, "the time will come for that. Meantime I must perform my mission. Stay thou there in thy place." Saying these words, he leaped with great dexterity into the sea (if I may so call it) of Flatland, right in the midst of the ring of Counsellors. "I come," cried he, "to proclaim that there is a land of Three Dimensions."
 * Chapter 18. How I came to Spaceland, and What I Saw There

 * I could see many of the younger Counsellors start back in manifest horror, as the Sphere's circular section widened before them. But on a sign from the presiding Circle — who shewed not the slightest alarm or surprise — six Isosceles of a low type from six different quarters rushed upon the Sphere. "We have him," they cried; "No; yes; we have him still! he's going! he's gone!" "My Lords," said the President to the Junior Circles of the Council, "there is not the slightest need for surprise; the secret archives, to which I alone have access, tell me that a similar occurrence happened on the last two millennial commencements. You will, of course, say nothing of these trifles outside the Cabinet."
 * Chapter 18. How I came to Spaceland, and What I Saw There

 * Were I to give the Sphere's explanation of these matters, succinct and clear though it was, it would be tedious to an inhabitant of Space, who knows these things already. Suffice it, that by his lucid statements, and by changing the position of objects and lights, and by allowing me to feel the several objects and even his own sacred Person, he at last made all things clear to me, so that I could now readily distinguish between a Circle and a Sphere, a Plane Figure and a Solid. This was the Climax, the Paradise, of my strange eventful History. Henceforth I have to relate the story of my miserable Fall: — most miserable, yet surely most undeserved! For why should the thirst for knowledge be aroused, only to be disappointed and punished? My volition shrinks from the painful task of recalling my humiliation; yet, like a second Prometheus, I will endure this and worse, if by any means I may arouse in the interiors of Plane and Solid Humanity a spirit of rebellion against the Conceit which would limit our Dimensions to Two or Three or any number short of Infinity. Away then with all personal considerations! Let me continue to the end, as I began, without further digressions or anticipations, pursuing the plain path of dispassionate History. The exact facts, the exact words, — and they are burnt in upon my brain, — shall be set down without alteration of an iota; and let my Readers judge between me and Destiny.
 * Chapter 19. How, Though the Sphere Showed Me Other Mysteries of Spaceland, I Still Desired More; and What Came of It

 * The Sphere would willingly have continued his lessons by indoctrinating me in the conformation of all regular Solids, Cylinders, Cones, Pyramids, Pentahedrons, Hexahedrons, Dodecahedrons, and Spheres: but I ventured to interrupt him. Not that I was wearied of knowledge. On the contrary, I thirsted for yet deeper and fuller draughts than he was offering to me.
 * Chapter 19. How, Though the Sphere Showed Me Other Mysteries of Spaceland, I Still Desired More; and What Came of It

 * My Lord, your own wisdom has taught me to aspire to One even more great, more beautiful, and more closely approximate to Perfection than yourself. As you yourself, superior to all Flatland forms, combine many Circles in One, so doubtless there is One above you who combines many Spheres in One Supreme Existence, surpassing even the Solids of Spaceland. And even as we, who are now in Space, look down on Flatland and see the insides of all things, so of a certainty there is yet above us some higher, purer region, whither thou dost surely purpose to lead me — O Thou Whom I shall always call, everywhere and in all Dimensions, my Priest, Philosopher, and Friend — some yet more spacious Space, some more dimensionable Dimensionality, from the vantage-ground of which we shall look down together upon the revealed insides of Solid things, and where thine own intestines, and those of thy kindred Spheres, will lie exposed to the view of the poor wandering exile from Flatland, to whom so much has already been vouchsafed.
 * Chapter 19. How, Though the Sphere Showed Me Other Mysteries of Spaceland, I Still Desired More; and What Came of It

 * Gracious Teacher, deny me not what I know it is in thy power to perform. Grant me but one glimpse of thine interior, and I am satisfied for ever, remaining henceforth thy docile pupil, thy unemancipable slave, ready to receive all thy teachings and to feed upon the words that fall from thy lips. SPHERE. Well, then, to content and silence you, let me say at once, I would shew you what you wish if I could; but I cannot. Would you have me turn my stomach inside out to oblige you?
 * Chapter 19. How, Though the Sphere Showed Me Other Mysteries of Spaceland, I Still Desired More; and What Came of It

 * I despair not that, even here, in this region of Three Dimensions, your Lordship's art may make the Fourth Dimension visible to me; just as in the Land of Two Dimensions my Teacher's skill would fain have opened the eyes of his blind servant to the invisible presence of a Third Dimension, though I saw it not. Let me recall the past. Was I not taught below that when I saw a Line and inferred a Plane, I in reality saw a Third unrecognized Dimension, not the same as brightness, called "height"? And does it not now follow that, in this region, when I see a Plane and infer a Solid, I really see a Fourth unrecognized Dimension, not the same as colour, but existent, though infinitesimal and incapable of measurement?
 * Chapter 19. How, Though the Sphere Showed Me Other Mysteries of Spaceland, I Still Desired More; and What Came of It

 * O, my Lord, my Lord, behold, I cast myself in faith upon conjecture, not knowing the facts; and I appeal to your Lordship to confirm or deny my logical anticipations. If I am wrong, I yield, and will no longer demand a fourth Dimension; but, if I am right, my Lord will listen to reason. I ask therefore, is it, or is it not, the fact, that ere now your countrymen also have witnessed the descent of Beings of a higher order than their own, entering closed rooms, even as your Lordship entered mine, without the opening of doors or windows, and appearing and vanishing at will? On the reply to this question I am ready to stake everything. Deny it, and I am henceforth silent. Only vouchsafe an answer.  SPHERE. (AFTER A PAUSE). It is reported so. But men are divided in opinion as to the facts. And even granting the facts, they explain them in different ways. And in any case, however great may be the number of different explanations, no one has adopted or suggested the theory of a Fourth Dimension.  Therefore, pray have done with this trifling, and let us return to business.
 * Chapter 19. How, Though the Sphere Showed Me Other Mysteries of Spaceland, I Still Desired More; and What Came of It

 * Those who have thus appeared — no one knows whence — and have returned — no one knows whither — have they also contracted their sections and vanished somehow into that more Spacious Space, whither I now entreat you to conduct me? SPHERE (MOODILY). They have vanished, certainly — if they ever appeared. But most people say that these visions arose from the thought — you will not understand me — from the brain; from the perturbed angularity of the Seer.  I. Say they so? Oh, believe them not. Or if it indeed be so, that this other Space is really Thoughtland, then take me to that blessed Region where I in Thought shall see the insides of all solid things. There, before my ravished eye, a Cube, moving in some altogether new direction, but strictly according to Analogy, so as to make every particle of his interior pass through a new kind of Space, with a wake of its own — shall create a still more perfect perfection than himself, with sixteen terminal Extra-solid angles, and Eight solid Cubes for his Perimeter. And once there, shall we stay our upward course? In that blessed region of Four Dimensions, shall we linger on the threshold of the Fifth, and not enter therein? Ah, no! Let us rather resolve that our ambition shall soar with our corporal ascent. Then, yielding to our intellectual onset, the gates of the Sixth Dimension shall fly open; after that a Seventh, and then an Eighth —  How long I should have continued I know not. In vain did the Sphere, in his voice of thunder, reiterate his command of silence, and threaten me with the direst penalties if I persisted. Nothing could stem the flood of my ecstatic aspirations. Perhaps I was to blame; but indeed I was intoxicated with the recent draughts of Truth to which he himself had introduced me. However, the end was not long in coming. My words were cut short by a crash outside, and a simultaneous crash inside me, which impelled me through space with a velocity that precluded speech. Down! down! down! I was rapidly descending; and I knew that return to Flatland was my doom. One glimpse, one last and never-to-be-forgotten glimpse I had of that dull level wilderness — which was now to become my Universe again — spread out before my eye. Then a darkness. Then a final, all-consummating thunder-peal; and, when I came to myself, I was once more a common creeping Square, in my Study at home, listening to the Peace-Cry of my approaching Wife.
 * Chapter 19. How, Though the Sphere Showed Me Other Mysteries of Spaceland, I Still Desired More; and What Came of It

 * Although I had less than a minute for reflection, I felt, by a kind of instinct, that I must conceal my experiences from my Wife. Not that I apprehended, at the moment, any danger from her divulging my secret, but I knew that to any Woman in Flatland the narrative of my adventures must needs be unintelligible. So I endeavoured to reassure her by some story, invented for the occasion, that I had accidentally fallen through the trap-door of the cellar, and had there lain stunned. The Southward attraction in our country is so slight that even to a Woman my tale necessarily appeared extraordinary and well-nigh incredible; but my Wife, whose good sense far exceeds that of the average of her Sex, and who perceived that I was unusually excited, did not argue with me on the subject, but insisted that I was ill and required repose.
 * Chapter 20. How the Sphere Encouraged Me in a Vision

 * During my slumber I had a dream. I thought I was once more by the side of the Sphere, whose lustrous hue betokened that he had exchanged his wrath against me for perfect placability. We were moving together towards a bright but infinitesimally small Point, to which my Master directed my attention. As we approached, methought there issued from it a slight humming noise as from one of your Spaceland bluebottles, only less resonant by far, so slight indeed that even in the perfect stillness of the Vacuum through which we soared, the sound reached not our ears till we checked our flight at a distance from it of something under twenty human diagonals. "Look yonder," said my Guide, "in Flatland thou hast lived; of Lineland thou hast received a vision; thou hast soared with me to the heights of Spaceland; now, in order to complete the range of thy experience, I conduct thee downward to the lowest depth of existence, even to the realm of Pointland, the Abyss of No dimensions.
 * Chapter 20. How the Sphere Encouraged Me in a Vision

 * "Behold yon miserable creature. That Point is a Being like ourselves, but confined to the non-dimensional Gulf. He is himself his own World, his own Universe; of any other than himself he can form no conception; he knows not Length, nor Breadth, nor Height, for he has had no experience of them; he has no cognizance even of the number Two; nor has he a thought of Plurality; for he is himself his One and All, being really Nothing. Yet mark his perfect self-contentment, and hence learn this lesson, that to be self-contented is to be vile and ignorant, and that to aspire is better than to be blindly and impotently happy. Now listen." He ceased; and there arose from the little buzzing creature a tiny, low, monotonous, but distinct tinkling, as from one of your Spaceland phonographs, from which I caught these words, "Infinite beatitude of existence! It is; and there is none else beside It."
 * Chapter 20. How the Sphere Encouraged Me in a Vision

"It fills all Space," continued the little soliloquizing Creature, "and what It fills, It is. What It thinks, that It utters; and what It utters, that It hears; and It itself is Thinker, Utterer, Hearer, Thought, Word, Audition; it is the One, and yet the All in All. Ah, the happiness ah, the happiness of Being!" ''' "Can you not startle the little thing out of its complacency?" said I. "Tell it what it really is, as you told me; reveal to it the narrow limitations of Pointland, and lead it up to something higher." "That is no easy task," said my Master; "try you." '''
 * "What," said I, "does the puny creature mean by 'it'?" "He means himself," said the Sphere: "have you not noticed before now, that babies and babyish people who cannot distinguish themselves from the world, speak of themselves in the Third Person? But hush!"
 * Chapter 20. How the Sphere Encouraged Me in a Vision

 * "You see," said my Teacher, "how little your words have done. So far as the Monarch understands them at all, he accepts them as his own — for he cannot conceive of any other except himself — and plumes himself upon the variety of 'Its Thought' as an instance of creative Power. Let us leave this God of Pointland to the ignorant fruition of his omnipresence and omniscience: nothing that you or I can do can rescue him from his self-satisfaction."
 * Chapter 20. How the Sphere Encouraged Me in a Vision

 * I could hear the mild voice of my Companion pointing the moral of my vision, and stimulating me to aspire, and to teach others to aspire. He had been angered at first — he confessed — by my ambition to soar to Dimensions above the Third; but, since then, he had received fresh insight, and he was not too proud to acknowledge his error to a Pupil. Then he proceeded to initiate me into mysteries yet higher than those I had witnessed, shewing me how to construct Extra-Solids by the motion of Solids, and Double Extra-Solids by the motion of Extra-Solids, and all "strictly according to Analogy", all by methods so simple, so easy, as to be patent even to the Female Sex.
 * Chapter 20. How the Sphere Encouraged Me in a Vision

Just as I had decided on the plan of my operations, I heard the sound of many voices in the street commanding silence. Then followed a louder voice. It was a herald's proclamation. Listening attentively, I recognized the words of the Resolution of the Council, enjoining the arrest, imprisonment, or execution of any one who should pervert the minds of the people by delusions, and by professing to have received revelations from another World.
 * I awoke rejoicing, and began to reflect on the glorious career before me. I would go forth, methought, at once, and evangelize the whole of Flatland. Even to Women and Soldiers should the Gospel of Three Dimensions be proclaimed. I would begin with my Wife.
 * Chapter 21. How I Tried to Teach the Theory of Three Dimensions to My Grandson, and With What Success

 * When my Grandson entered the room I carefully secured the door. Then, sitting down by his side and taking our mathematical tablets, — or, as you would call them, Lines — I told him we would resume the lesson of yesterday. I taught him once more how a Point by motion in One Dimension produces a Line, and how a straight Line in Two Dimensions produces a Square. After this, forcing a laugh, I said, "And now, you scamp, you wanted to make me believe that a Square may in the same way by motion 'Upward, not Northward' produce another figure, a sort of extra Square in Three Dimensions. Say that again, you young rascal." At this moment we heard once more the herald's "O yes! O yes!" outside in the street proclaiming the Resolution of the Council. Young though he was, my Grandson — who was unusually intelligent for his age, and bred up in perfect reverence for the authority of the Circles — took in the situation with an acuteness for which I was quite unprepared. He remained silent till the last words of the Proclamation had died away, and then, bursting into tears, "Dear Grandpapa," he said, "that was only my fun, and of course I meant nothing at all by it; and we did not know anything then about the new Law; and I don't think I said anything about the Third Dimension; and I am sure I did not say one word about 'Upward, not Northward', for that would be such nonsense, you know. How could a thing move Upward, and not Northward? Upward and not Northward! Even if I were a baby, I could not be so absurd as that. How silly it is! Ha! ha! ha!"
 * Chapter 21. How I Tried to Teach the Theory of Three Dimensions to My Grandson, and With What Success

 * I devoted several months in privacy to the composition of a treatise on the mysteries of Three Dimensions. Only, with the view of evading the Law, if possible, I spoke not of a physical Dimension, but of a Thoughtland whence, in theory, a Figure could look down upon Flatland and see simultaneously the insides of all things, and where it was possible that there might be supposed to exist a Figure environed, as it were, with six Squares, and containing eight terminal Points. But in writing this book I found myself sadly hampered by the impossibility of drawing such diagrams as were necessary for my purpose... my life was under a cloud. All pleasures palled upon me; all sights tantalized and tempted me to outspoken treason, because I could not but compare what I saw in Two Dimensions with what it really was if seen in Three, and could hardly refrain from making my comparisons aloud.' I neglected my clients and my own business to give myself to the contemplation of the mysteries which I had once beheld, yet which I could impart to no one, and found daily more difficult to reproduce even before my own mental vision.
 * Chapter 22. How I Then Tried to Diffuse the Theory of Three Dimensions by Other Means, and of the Result

 * At times my spirit was too strong for me, and I gave vent to dangerous utterances. Already I was considered heterodox if not treasonable, and I was keenly alive to the danger of my position; nevertheless I could not at times refrain from bursting out into suspicious or half-seditious utterances, even among the highest Polygonal and Circular society. When, for example, the question arose about the treatment of those lunatics who said that they had received the power of seeing the insides of things, I would quote the saying of an ancient Circle, who declared that prophets and inspired people are always considered by the majority to be mad; and I could not help occasionally dropping such expressions as "the eye that discerns the interiors of things", and "the all-seeing land"; once or twice I even let fall the forbidden terms "the Third and Fourth Dimensions". At last, to complete a series of minor indiscretions, at a meeting of our Local Speculative Society held at the palace of the Prefect himself, — some extremely silly person having read an elaborate paper exhibiting the precise reasons why Providence has limited the number of Dimensions to Two, and why the attribute of omnividence is assigned to the Supreme alone — I so far forgot myself as to give an exact account of the whole of my voyage with the Sphere into Space, and to the Assembly Hall in our Metropolis, and then to Space again, and of my return home, and of everything that I had seen and heard in fact or vision. At first, indeed, I pretended that I was describing the imaginary experiences of a fictitious person; but my enthusiasm soon forced me to throw off all disguise, and finally, in a fervent peroration, I exhorted all my hearers to divest themselves of prejudice and to become believers in the Third Dimension. Need I say that I was at once arrested and taken before the Council?
 * Chapter 22. How I Then Tried to Diffuse the Theory of Three Dimensions by Other Means, and of the Result

 * After I had concluded my defence, the President, perhaps perceiving that some of the junior Circles had been moved by my evident earnestness, asked me two questions: — 1. Whether I could indicate the direction which I meant when I used the words "Upward, not Northward"?  2. Whether I could by any diagrams or descriptions (other than the enumeration of imaginary sides and angles) indicate the Figure I was pleased to call a Cube?  I declared that I could say nothing more, and that I must commit myself to the Truth, whose cause would surely prevail in the end.  The President replied that he quite concurred in my sentiment, and that I could not do better. I must be sentenced to perpetual imprisonment; but if the Truth intended that I should emerge from prison and evangelize the world, the Truth might be trusted to bring that result to pass. Meanwhile I should be subjected to no discomfort that was not necessary to preclude escape, and, unless I forfeited the privilege by misconduct, I should be occasionally permitted to see my brother who had preceded me to my prison.
 * Chapter 22. How I Then Tried to Diffuse the Theory of Three Dimensions by Other Means, and of the Result

 * My brother is one of the best of Squares, just, sensible, cheerful, and not without fraternal affection; yet I confess that my weekly interviews, at least in one respect, cause me the bitterest pain. He was present when the Sphere manifested himself in the Council Chamber; he saw the Sphere's changing sections; he heard the explanation of the phenomena then given to the Circles. Since that time, scarcely a week has passed during seven whole years, without his hearing from me a repetition of the part I played in that manifestation, together with ample descriptions of all the phenomena in Spaceland, and the arguments for the existence of Solid things derivable from Analogy. Yet — I take shame to be forced to confess it — my brother has not yet grasped the nature of the Third Dimension, and frankly avows his disbelief in the existence of a Sphere. Hence I am absolutely destitute of converts, and, for aught that I can see, the millennial Revelation has been made to me for nothing. Prometheus up in Spaceland was bound for bringing down fire for mortals, but I — poor Flatland Prometheus — lie here in prison for bringing down nothing to my countrymen. Yet I exist in the hope that these memoirs, in some manner, I know not how, may find their way to the minds of humanity in Some Dimension, and may stir up a race of rebels who shall refuse to be confined to limited Dimensionality.  That is the hope of my brighter moments. Alas, it is not always so. Heavily weighs on me at times the burdensome reflection that I cannot honestly say I am confident as to the exact shape of the once-seen, oft-regretted Cube; and in my nightly visions the mysterious precept, "Upward, not Northward", haunts me like a soul-devouring Sphinx. '''It is part of the martyrdom which I endure for the cause of the Truth that there are seasons of mental weakness, when Cubes and Spheres flit away into the background of scarce-possible existences; when the Land of Three Dimensions seems almost as visionary as the Land of One or None; nay, when even this hard wall that bars me from my freedom, these very tablets on which I am writing, and all the substantial realities of Flatland itself, appear no better than the offspring of a diseased imagination, or the baseless fabric of a dream.
 * Chapter 22. How I Then Tried to Diffuse the Theory of Three Dimensions by Other Means, and of the Result

title: Edwin Abbott Abbott


text:
Carlos Santana

Carlos Humberto Santana Barragán (born July 20, 1947) is a Grammy Award-winning Mexican Latin rock musician and guitarist. He gained prominence in the late 1960s and early 1970s with his band, Santana, which created a highly successful blend of salsa, rock, blues, and jazz fusion. Their sound featured his melodic, blues based guitar lines set against Latin percussion such as timbales and congas. Santana continued to work in these forms over the following decades, and experienced a sudden resurgence of popularity and critical acclaim in the late 1990s. Rolling Stone also named Santana number 15 on their list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time in 2003.

Quotes

 * My dad's a beautiful man, but like a lot of Mexican men, or men in general, a lot of men have a problem with the balance of masculinity and femininity--intuition and compassion and tenderness--and get overboard with the macho thing. It took him a while to become more, I would say, conscious, evolved.
 * Carlos Santana on his father.[]

 * Oh, I think it was like when, you know, Cupid throws an arrow and hits you. First, there was this Mexican band, dressed up with bows and arrows. They were playing some funky weird music,, I didn't know it yet, but it was like Lee Perry, George Clinton, and Sun Ra mixed up, Mexican funky.
 * On his first musical memory.[]

 * Blues was my first love. It was the first thing where I said "Oh man, this is the stuff." It just sounded so raw and honest, gut-bucket honest. From then I started rebelling.
 * []

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Carlos Santana


text:
Wikiquote:Votes for deletion archive/Ben Payton

 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: delete. — Jeffq 04:00, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Ben Payton
This page is a nearly-identical copy of User:Ben Payton in the article space (so probably vanity) and includes no assertion of notability. —LrdChaos 22:49, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

 * Vote closed. Result: delete (4 proper Deletes, 1 discounted late Delete; 3 counted Keeps [Forrest Hump, Great Warrior, Changetheworld] since 88.107.104.96 not only attempted 2 deceptions but also is a suspected sockpuppet of Forrest Hump/Ben Payton; most importantly, no attempt was made to change the article either to source the notability of the putative quotee (a British "orator") or to replace the material with quotes from the identified notable Benjamin Payton). ~ Jeff Q (talk) 04:00, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

 * Delete. —LrdChaos 22:49, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 23:28, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Do not delete Actually this article is not remotely similar to the User: Ben Payton page and it does include an assertion of notability. Oh, and by the way, why not read the page before you vote to delete it?
 * Comment. At the time of the nomination, this was the "Ben Payton" page and this was the "User:Ben Payton" page. At the time, they were nearly identical. Many of the changes since then have been from an anon user, not User:Ben Payton (which, had I noticed, would have been reverted, as edits to User pages (not User talk pages) should only be from that user). As to notability, while the article does now include an assertion of notability, I'm unable to find evidence to support it. The top results for a Google search on the name are a Wikipedia user page, a comic book character, a musician, etc. For all that, there are only 164 results, and only two (both pages on the same site, www.school-portal.co.uk) appear to be this person. —LrdChaos 16:16, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Don't delete for those fairly obvious reasons Forrest Hump
 * Don't delete there's some memorable quotes here by a noted public speaker UDScott
 * I have blocked this IP address for 3 days for impersonating another user. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 20:48, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep Ben Payton is an extremely well known figure up here in Alaska and if you've read the article about him you'll see that he's an highly impressive orator. Incidentally a google search reveals some 1,4100,000 results Great Warrior of the North
 * The first sentence above is not evidence, but a mere claim. For all we know, the author might not be "up here in Alaska", but halfway around the world instead. That's why personal attestations are not considered evidence. It also includes the standard attempt to ignore notability and verifiability requirements by selling the qualities of the quotes and quotee. As for the supposed Google search, here is mine for "Ben Payton", which yields 377 hits, remarkably low for a presumably common name, even if no Ben Payton is notable. I invite GWotN to provide us with a link to his Google search as evidence. Otherwise, given his current edit history (1 edit each to "Ben Payton", his own user page, and this page), I would have to suspect him of being a sockpuppet of User:Ben Payton himself. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 21:07, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Note. It is possible that User:Ben Payton, User:Forrest Hump, and the IP 88.107.104.96 are all the same user, given the contribution history of the users, and the fact that 88.107.104.96 has made edits to the user pages for both users. —LrdChaos 17:00, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment. The current article claims that Ben Payton is "President of Tuskegee University in Alaska". Since Tuskegee University (at least the only one I know of) is in Alabama, this reinforces, along with the impersonation, apparent sockpuppetry, and the complete lack of actual evidence (not just unsupported claims), the idea that these users are all the the person, who is a prankster. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 20:56, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete, concur with Jeffq and LrdChaos. ~ UDScott 13:21, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment: There seems to be quite a bit of confusion promulgated over this article. User:Ben Payton, who created this article, states that this person is a "well known British orator". User:Great Warrior of the North added a claim that the quotee was "President of Tuskegee University in Alaska and shared a podium with President George W. Bush when he visited the university in April 2006", and added the above comment that the quotee "is an extremely well known figure up here in Alaska". An anonymous user in the same network as our impersonator here, 88.107.104.96, quickly reverted GWotN's edit. My own research turned up a "President Benjamin F. Payton" of Tuskegee University in Alabama, who did indeed give a speech before Bush. (See Payton bio, White House press release, Tuskegee version, Payton quotes.) This person has no Wikipedia article at this time, under "Benjamin Payton" (the canonical representation) or any reasonable variation. I draw the following conclusions from this and the above information:
 * User:Ben Payton, who uses British spelling on his user page, created a vanity article about himself.
 * ,, (all of whom operate from within UK ISP Tiscali's DSL network of likely dynamic IP addresses), and User:Forrest Hump are likely sockpuppets of User:Ben Payton. Even if they aren't, their combined contributions to Wikiquote to-date have been solely to support the British Ben Payton (with only minor exceptions for user pages and a single VfD vote supporting Hannah Richardson while admitting this person is not notable).
 * User:Great Warrior of the North, who supports the article, seems to think it's about the Tuskegee president, and despite apparently being from Alaska, claims familiarity with this Payton while thinking he works in Alaska rather than Alabama (a rather significant error).
 * Dr. Benjamin F. Payton seems to be notable enough for quoting, but no one participating in this VfD seems to really know this person or wish to correctly quote him.
 * My conclusion is that nobody here is willing to make this article even a stub about a notable person. I would recommend that if Tuskegee fans wish to have an article on their President, they should start one from scratch at Benjamin Payton (and don't forget the sources that I took the trouble to dig up). This article is a hopeless mess. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 04:13, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete. InvisibleSun 05:09, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep i've read through all the articles nominated for deletion, and this is one of the very few that is any good. How can it be a 'hopeless mess' when its actually got outstanding pieces of rhetoric? Wikiquote is supposed to be about good quotations, so lets keep the few that we have. Changetheworld 19:12 27 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid I wasn't very clear when I said the article was a hopeless mess. I really meant that trying to figure out what this article should be is a hopeless mess, per my above research on the subject(s) and the editors' postings and edit histories. Pithiness of quotes is irrelevant to Wikiquote if the quotee is not notable. Wikiquote is indeed about "good quotations", but only from "notable people and creative works" (from the first sentence on Main Page), and these should be sourced whenever possible. (Wikiquote mentions quotes that have "achieved fame" by themselves, but this means truly well-known quotes of anonymous origin, not an excuse for people to post their own sayings, which is what makes our current Anonymous article a near-total waste of computer storage.) That's not my policy or the policy of one regular editor or sysop; it is Wikimedia Foundation policy about the purposes and contents of its projects. There are many, many other quote websites that will accept quotes from anyone without establishing notability. This just isn't one of them. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 22:37, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete per it being a pure vanity page as is made clearer by the sockpuppets which are currently going on. SorryGuy 23:58, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.


text:
Lawyers

Lawyers are people who practice law, as a barrister, judge, attorney, counsel (counselor at law) or solicitor. Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political and social authority, and deliver justice. Working as a lawyer involves the practical application of abstract legal theories and knowledge to solve specific individualized problems, or to advance the interests of those who hire lawyers to perform legal services.

Quotes

 * Doing justice refers to the act of carrying out fair and equitable actions, while having justice could imply possessing or experiencing the benefits or outcomes of justice. Both are important aspects of a just society. Justice being perceived as a rare commodity in Pakistan is a concern echoed by many. The effectiveness and fairness of the justice system can vary widely across different regions and communities. Efforts to strengthen institutions, improve transparency, and promote accountability are essential for fostering a more just society.
 * Do Justice & Have Justice Pakistan Today. Akhtar Aly Kureshy

 * She had once looked up the term ‘lawyer’ and found it was someone who helped you fight laws.
 * Gregory Benford, Aspects (2015) in Meeting Infinity, edited by Jonathan Strahan, and published by Solaris ISBN 978-1-84997-922-1, e-book edition

 * LAWYER, n. One skilled in circumvention of the law.
 * Ambrose Bierce, The Cynic's Word Book (1906); republished as The Devil's Dictionary (1911).

 * It may be that the jury would incline to regard a practising lawyer as a man of probity whose word was prima facie worthy of belief. But the belief of lawyers in their own probity is not universally shared, and there are those who believe them to be capable of almost any chicanery or sharp practice.
 * Lord Bingham of Cornhill, writing for the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, in Singh v. The State (Trinidad and Tobago) [2005] UKPC 35 (03 August 2005).

 * America is the paradise of lawyers.
 * Attributed to David J. Brewer in Champ Clark, My Quarter Century of American Politics (1920), vol. 2, p. 130.

 * We have the heaviest concentration of lawyers on Earth—one for every five-hundred Americans; three times as many as are in England, four times as many as are in West Germany, twenty-one times as many as there are in Japan. We have more litigation, but I am not sure that we have more justice. No resources of talent and training in our own society, even including the medical care, is more wastefully or unfairly distributed than legal skills. Ninety percent of our lawyers serve 10 percent of our people. We are over-lawyered and under-represented.
 * President Jimmy Carter, Remarks at the 100th Anniversary Luncheon of the Los Angeles County Bar Association, May 4, 1978 (American Presidency Project e-text).

 * He was a lawyer before he worked his way up to pimping.
 * Glen Cook,  The Black Company (1984), Chapter 1

 * Next, bring some lawyers to thy bar, By innuendo they might all stand there; There let them expiate that guilt, And pay for all that blood their tongues have spilt. These are the mountebanks of state, Who by the sleight of tongues can crimes create, And dress up trifles in the robes of fate, The mastiffs of a Government, To worry and run down the innocent.
 * Daniel Defoe, Hymn to the Pillory (1703).

 * Professionals, too, proved exceptionally susceptible to Hitler's appeal. Lawyers and doctors were substantially over-represented within the NSDAP, as were university students (then a far narrower section of society than today). To fat middle-aged lawyers, he was the heir to Bismarck. For their sons, he was the Wagnerian hero Rienzi, the demagogue who unites the people of Rome. 'Right down to the last, deepest fibre in myself, I belong to the Fiihrer and his wonderful movement,' wrote the Nazi lawyer Hans Frank in his diary after a concert he had attended with Hitler on February 10, 1937. 'We are in truth God's tool for the annihilation of the bad forces of the earth. We fight in God's name against Jews and their Bolshevism. God protect us!' Such thoughts helped him and many other lawyers to come to terms with the systematic illegality that characterized the regime from the very outset: the arrests without trial (26,000 people were already in 'protective custody' as early as July 1933), the summary executions (beginning with the Night of the Long Knives in June 1934, when between eighty-five and two hundred people, including the over-mighty leaders of the SA, were murdered in cold blood) and, of course, the escalating discrimination against racial and social minorities.
 * Niall Ferguson, The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West (2006), p. 242

 * A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.
 * Robert Frost, quoted in Fire and Ice: The Art and Thought of Robert Frost (1961) by Lawrence Thompson.

 * It has an unhappy effect upon the human understanding and temper, for a man to be compelled in his gravest investigation of an argument, to consider, not what is true, but what is convenient. The lawyer never yet existed who has not boldly urged an objection which he knew to be fallacious, or endeavoured to pass off a weak reason for a strong one. Intellect is the greatest and most sacred of all endowments; and no man ever trifled with it, defending an action to-day which he had arraigned yesterday, or extenuating an offence on one occasion, which, soon after, he painted in the most atrocious colours, with absolute impunity. Above all, the poet, whose judgment should be clear, whose feelings should be uniform and sound, whose sense should be alive to every impression and hardened to none, who is the legislator of generations and the moral instructor of the world, ought never to have been a practising lawyer, or ought speedily to have quitted so dangerous an engagement.
 * William Godwin, The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer vol. 1, p. 370 (1803)

 * The function of the lawyer is to preserve a sceptical relativism in a society hell-bent for absolutes. The worse the society, the more law there will be. In Hell there will be nothing but law and due process will be meticulously observed.
 * Grant Gilmore, The Ages of American Law (1977), p. 110

 * I suspect that there are just two sorts of lawyers: those who spend their efforts making life easy for other people—and parasites.
 * Robert A. Heinlein, Friday (1982), ISBN 0-345-30988-X, p. 257

 * Lawyers earn their bread in the sweat of their browbeating.
 * James Huneker, Painted Veils (New York: Boni & Liveright, 1920), p. 137 (Google Books e-text).

 * The goddess Peri became so jealous that she laid a curse on my mother, who turned into a lawyer.
 * John Kessel, Events Preceding the Helvetican Renaissance (2009) in Gardner Dozois & Jonathan Strahan (eds.) The New Space Opera 2 (mass market paperback edition, ISBN 978-0-06-156236-5), p. 76

 * Lawyers, I suppose, were children once.
 * Charles Lamb, Elia (1823), "The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple", p. 193

 * "[F]or a long time I used to think that anal sex was how lawyers were conceived."
 * Nicholas Lezard, "Love is in the air", New Statesman, 30 April 2009.

 * I pleaded your cause, Sextus, having agreed to do so for two thousand sesterces How is it that you have sent me only a thousand? "You said nothing," you tell me, "and this cause was lost through you." You ought to give me so much the more, Sextus, as I had to blush for you.
 * Martial, Epigrams, Bk. VIII, Ep. 18, reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 410.

 * Lawyer — One who protects us against robbers by taking away the temptation.
 * H.L. Mencken, A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949).

 * That makes me think, my friend, as I have often done before, how natural it is that those who have spent a long time in the study of philosophy appear ridiculous when they enter the courts of law as speakers…. Those who have knocked about in courts and the like from their youth up seem to me, when compared with those who have been brought up in philosophy and similar pursuits, to be as slaves in breeding compared with freemen.
 * Plato, Theaetetus (c. 369 BC), trans. H. N. Fowler (1921), p. 115.

 * Let's ask ourselves: Does America really need 70 percent of the world's lawyers? Is it healthy for our economy to have 18 million new lawsuits coursing through the system annually? Is it right that people with disputes come up against staggering expense and delay?
 * Dan Quayle, address to the American Bar Association, quoted in

 * A common and not necessarily apocryphal example portrays a solo practitioner starved for business in a small town. A second lawyer then arrives, and they both prosper.
 * Deborah L. Rhode, In the Interests of Justice: Reforming the Legal Profession, Oxford US (2000)

 * About half the practice of a decent lawyer consists of telling would-be clients that they are damned fools and should stop.
 * Elihu Root, quoted in Philip C. Jessup, Elihu Root (Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1964), vol. 1, p. 133, as cited by Lloyd B. Snyder, "Is attorney-client confidentiality necessary?", Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics, Spring 2002, p. 33.

 * What are lawyers really? To me a lawyer is basically the person that knows the rules of the country. We're all throwing the dice, playing the game, moving our pieces around the board, but if there's a problem, the lawyer is the only person that has actually read the inside of the top of the box.
 * Jerry Seinfeld, SeinLanguage (New York: Bantam, 1993), ISBN 0553096060, p. 90.

 * Cade: Be brave, then; for your captain is brave, and vows reformation. There shall be in England seven halfpenny loaves sold for a penny, the three-hooped pot shall have ten hoops, and I will make it felony to drink small beer; all the realm shall be in common; and in Cheapside shall my palfrey go to grass; and when I am king, as king I will be, there shall be no money; all shall eat and drink on my score; and I will apparel them all in one livery, that they may agree like brothers and worship me their lord. Dick: The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. Cade: Nay, that I mean to do.
 * William Shakespeare, Henry the Sixth, Part II, IV, ii (1623), suggesting that all lawyers would have to die in order for Cade to impose his will as king, with a list of absurd laws he would propose.

 * Those too the tyrant serve, who, skilled to snare The feet of justice in the toils of law, Stand ready to oppress the weaker still, And right or wrong will vindicate for gold, Sneering at public virtue, which beneath Their pitiless tread lies torn and trampled where Honor sits smiling at the sale of truth.
 * Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Fairy in Queen Mab (1813), Canto IV

 * Chuck McGill: I know you. I know what you were, what you are. People don't change. You're Slippin' Jimmy! And Slippin' Jimmy I can handle just fine, but Slippin' Jimmy with a law degree is like a chimp with a machine gun! The law is sacred! If you abuse that power, people get hurt! This is not a game. You have to know on some level, I know you know I'm right. You know I'm right!
 * Chuck McGill as interpreted by Michael Mkcean in "Pimento”, Better Call Saul, (March 30, 2015); written by Thomas Schnauz

 * Not all lawyers are annoying. Some are dead.
 * Robert Silverberg, The Emperor and the Maula (2007) in Gardner Dozois & Jonathan Strahan (eds.) The New Space Opera (mass market paperback edition, ISBN 978-0-06-135041-2), p. 476

 * Is it not remarkable that the common repute which we all give to attorneys in the general is exactly opposite to that which every man gives to his own attorney in particular? Whom does anybody trust so implicitly as he trusts his own attorney? And yet is it not the case that the body of attorneys is supposed to be the most roguish body in existence?
 * Anthony Trollope, Miss Mackenzie (1865), ch. 17 (Project Gutenburg e-text).

 * [Lawyers] can make the worse appear the better cause, as though they were fresh from Leontine schools, and have been known to wrest from reluctant juries triumphant verdicts of acquittal for their clients, even when those clients, as often happens, were clearly and unmistakably innocent.
 * Oscar Wilde, "The Decay of Lying", Intentions (New York: Brentano's, 1905).

 * The Court must have ministers : the attornies are its ministers.
 * Joseph Yates, J., Mayor of Norwich v. Berry (1766), 4 Burr. Part IV., p. 2115, reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 16.

 * An incompetent attorney can delay a trial for years or months. A competent attorney can delay one even longer.
 * Evelle J. Younger, California Attorney General, Los Angeles Times, March 3, 1971.

 * When there are too many policemen, there can be no individual liberty, when there are too many lawyers, there can be no justice, and when there are too many soldiers, there can be no peace.
 * Lin Yutang, Between Tears and Laughter (1943), p. 66.

title: Lawyers


text:
User talk:69.109.54.254

Please stop adding nonsense to Wikiquote, as you did to Bill Nye the Science Guy. It is considered vandalism. If you would like to experiment, use the sandbox. - InvisibleSun 06:12, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

title: User talk:69.109.54.254


text:
User talk:87.202.51.51

Hello?? If you want to talk to me contact User:Alexignatiou

title: User talk:87.202.51.51


text:
User talk:216.123.202.165

Thank you for experimenting with the page The Man with Two Brains on Wikiquote. Your test worked, and has been reverted or removed. Please use the sandbox for any other tests you want to do. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our quotation compendium. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 13:54, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

title: User talk:216.123.202.165


text:
Michael Winner

Michael Robert Winner (30 October 1935 – 21 January 2013) was a British film director and producer.

Quotes

 * A team effort is a lot of people, doing what I say.
 * quoted by Alix Palmer, The Sunday Times (London, 5 April 1970), cited in his autobiography Winner Takes All: A Life of Sorts (Robson Books, 2004), p. 313

Because I'm two people. I'm Arnold Crust, the editor, and I'm Michael Winner, the director.
 * I think with less accomplished actors you often have to play tricks [...] You may actually want to upset them to make them look upset on the screen so they carry that forward.
 * [To extras dressed as London policemen] You're just standing there! DOING NOTHING! Why should I pay you for doing nothing? I want you to run. You understand run! [...] R-U-N? RUN?
 * [From the section entitled "Winner Talking" in a personal booklet] Lunacy is a very important quality for a successful director. Most top directors are quite a bit batty. That's what makes them great. They can conceive fantasies beyond the normal mind. Another quality is just keeping alive. It is quite remarkable that no director has been murdered in cold blood on the set.
 * So when I'm directing now, you see, I'm thinking of myself, I'm projecting myself in five weeks' time, sitting in a little room with two assistants, saying, "I now need a piece of film when Mr. Caine does this, or Mr. Moore does that." And if I haven't got it, I say, "Damn it, I should have gotten that." So all the time I'm imagining myself in that little X-time hence which is why I can shoot a very complicated pattern without any pre-planning.
 * "In 'Bull's-Eye!' the Aim Is Laughter", The New York Times (14 January 1990).
 * See Bullseye! released the following November.

 * I think the lesbians have come over with considerable dignity and you have come over as an arsehole.
 * On Richard Littlejohn Live and Uncut (local programme broadcast by ITV contractor London Weekend Television on 8 July 1994), as cited in "Television: Oases amid the Troubles", The Independent (9 July 1994)
 * In response to journalist Richard Littlerjohn's interview of two lesbian mothers, one of whom was the radical feminist Linda Bellos.

 * If I could go back, I would spend much more, earlier. No question. This sounds absolutely crass, but I would have taken private planes earlier, would have had a chauffeur and better cars earlier, I'd have bought better paintings earlier.
 * [On his mother, Helen] Nice, little, white-haired lady. She was a killer. If she decided she wasn't happy about something, she was acid.
 * From an interview, as cited in "Too sensitive for his shirt", The Guardian (6 May 2001)

At least if you go straight to the House of Lords you can wear fancy dress and have a giggle.
 * An OBE is what you get if you clean the toilets well at King's Cross station.
 * I really don't care if I get anything or not. [...] I'm very glad that they recognise my considerable skills as a toilet cleaner.
 * But when you look at the rubbish who are getting these awards and the absolute non-service they have given to the nation other than financing or working for political parties, you say, "What company am I in?"
 * On turning down an OBE for his work in campaigning for the National Police Memorial in The Sunday Times, as cited in "Winner shuns 'toilet-cleaner OBE'", BBC News (28 May 2006).

 * I don't want to do something for the sake of it. I am prepared to wait. If I wait until I am buried, too bad.
 * On regularly being asked to re-make Death Wish, as cited in "Winner's Death Wish 'most copied'", BBC News (5 September 2006).

 * I ALWAYS LIKED MR STALIN
 * On being asked who his favourite Communist dictator was.

 * [On the Swiss Dignitas assisted dying clinic] It's not a walk-in death. You don't just go in and say, "Here I am, do your worst". You have to go through a whole series of papers and re-examinations just to die. You have to fill in forms and things and go have to fly there, go back twice.
 * If you’re dead, you're dead, so who cares.
 * [Marlon] Brando was my best friend, [Robert] Mitchum, Burt Lancaster, even though he tried to kill me three times.
 * From an interview, as cited in "Michael Winner: Dignitas is not a walk in death", The Times (4 October 2012)

 * So this is it: goodbye. I’ve been writing this column for nearly 20 years and I don’t want a carriage clock or a gold watch. I am trying to get rid of stuff, not collect it.
 * From his last restaurant review in The Sunday Times (2 December 2012), reprinted in The Times (21 January 2013) and "Geraldine says it's time to get down from the table. Goodbye", Winner's Dinners website

 * Money has no value unless it is spent. (undated)
 * I think if I had my life again I would not be so utterly self-satisfied. (2004)
 * Quoted in "Michael Winner" (obituary), The Times (22 January 2013)

About Michael Winner

 * He can be a generous host and a most entertaining companion but he can also be rude and a bully, as if it amuses him to confront the world in the guise of a self-made shit. It's hard to understand why this should be so. It can't be financial disappointment because God knows he has made enough money. Perhaps what gripes him is that he wanted to be a great director and never became one. Not enough for him, I suspect, that as a producer he has few peers among his contemporaries in the British film industry.
 * Barry Norman And Why Not?: Memoirs of a Film Lover, London: Simon & Schuster, 2002, p. 211

title: Michael Winner