A REVOLVING quotation "Sampler"

A Dozen Quotations from Deconstructing Trump:

Every week I'll be featuring a "Sampler" of quotations from the book.  If you enjoy this week's selection, check in next week for a dozen new ones:  


I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.   Susan B. Anthony, in remarks at 1896 meeting of the National-American Woman Suffrage Association


Vanity working on a weak head produces every sort of mischief.    Jane Austen, in Emma (1815)


A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is great.   — Saul Bellow, in To Jerusalem and Back (1976)


The bully must be met with instant repulse or he multiplies his own violence. A placated bully is a hand-fed bully.   Edna Ferber, in A Kind of Magic: An Autobiography (1963)


QUOTE NOTE: A bit later in the book, Ferber went on to add: “One thing I’ve learned in life; you cannot placate the power-mad. You must—to paraphrase an old saying—take the bully by the horns. Early.”


No estimate is more in danger of erroneous calculation than those by which a man computes the force of his own genius.   Samuel Johnson, in The Rambler(Sep. 7, 1751) 


When small men attempt great enterprises, They always end by reducing them to the level of their mediocrity.    Napoleon I, in J. Bertaut, Napoleon in His Own Words (1916)


The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it emotionally.    Flannery O’Connor, in a 1955 letter


The dangerous man is not the critic, but the noisy, empty “patriot” who encourages us to indulge in orgies of self-congratulation. J. B. Priestley, in Rain Upon Godshill (1939) 


QUOTE NOTE: Priestley introduced the thought by writing: “We should behave towards our country as women behave towards the men they love. A loving wife will do anything for her husband except to stop criticizing

and trying to improve him. That is the right attitude for a citizen. We should cast the same affectionate but sharp glance at our country. We should love it, but also insist upon telling it all its faults.”


The presidency is not merely an administrative office….  It is pre-eminently a place of moral leadership.   Franklin D. Roosevelt, quoted in The New York Times (Sep. 11, 1932)


Reasoning will never make a man correct an ill opinion, which by reasoning he never acquired.   Jonathan Swift, in Letter to a Young Clergyman(Jan. 9, 1720)


If you've enjoyed this sampling of quotations, imagine finding a thousand more that are similarly descriptive of Donald Trump and The Trump Era.  Welcome to Deconstructing Trump: The Trump Phenomenon Through the Lens of Quotation History (published Sep. 23, 2019)

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New deconstructing Trump quotes

Below You Will Find Selected New Quotations That Came to my Attention After the Book was Published

Quotations to Come 

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