John Jay Chapman Quotes

• I want to find someone on the earth so intelligent that he welcomes opinions which he condemns.

  John Jay Chapman

• Everybody in America is soft, and hates conflict. The cure for this, both in politics and social life, is the same — hardihood. Give them raw truth.

  John Jay Chapman

• The average educated man in America has about as much knowledge of what a political idea is as he has of the principles of counterpoint. Each is a thing used in politics or music which those fellows who practice politics or music manipulate somehow. Show him one and he will deny that it is politics at all. It must be corrupt or he will not recognize it. He has only seen dried figs. He has only thought dried thoughts. A live thought or a real idea is against the rules of his mind.

  John Jay Chapman

• Our goodness comes solely from thinking on goodness; our wickedness from thinking on wickedness. We too are the victims of our own contemplation.

  John Jay Chapman

• The men and woman who make the best boon companions seem to have given up hope of doing something else…some defect of talent or opportunity has cut them off from their pet ambition and has thus left them with leisure to take an interest in their lives of others. Your ambition may be, it makes him keep his thoughts at home. But the heartbroken people — if I may use the word in a mild, benevolent sense — the people whose wills are subdued to fate, give us consolation, recognition, and welcome.

  John Jay Chapman

• The fact that a man is to vote forces him to think. You may preach to a congregation by the year and not affect its thought because it is not called upon for definite action. But throw your subject into a campaign and it becomes a challenge.

  John Jay Chapman

• A vision of truth which does not call upon us to get out of our armchair — why, this is the desideratum of mankind.

  John Jay Chapman

• Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian Nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.

  John Jay Chapman

• The Bible is the best of all books, for it is the word of God and teaches us the way to be happy in this world and in the next. Continue therefore to read it and to regulate your life by its precepts.

  John Jay Chapman

• It is just as impossible to help reform by conciliating prejudice as it is by buying votes. Prejudice is the enemy. Whoever is not for you is against you.

  John Jay Chapman

• All progress is experimental.

  John Jay Chapman

• Good government is the outcome of private virtue.

  John Jay Chapman

• Too much agreement kills the chat.

  John Jay Chapman

  Tags in Agreement

• Organized hatred, that is unity.

  John Jay Chapman

• A thing is not the truth till it is so strongly believed in, that the believer is convinced that its existence does not depend upon him.

  John Jay Chapman

• People who love soft methods and hate iniquity forget this, — that reform consists in taking a bone from a dog. Philosophy will not do it.

  John Jay Chapman

• The world of politics is always twenty years behind the world of thought.

  John Jay Chapman

  Topics in Politics

• A political organization is a transferable commodity. You could not find a better way of killing virtue than by packing it into one of these contraptions which some gang of thieves is sure to find useful.

  John Jay Chapman

• If American politics does not look to you like a joke, a tragic dance; if you have enough blindness left in you, on any plea, on any excuse, to vote for the Democratic Party or the Republican Party (for at present machine and party are one), or for any candidate who does not stand for a new era, / then you yourself pass into the slide of the magic-lantern; you are an exhibit, a quaint product, a curiosity of the American soil. You are part of the problem.

  John Jay Chapman

• Wherever you see a man who gives someone else’s corruption, someone else’s prejudice as a reason for not taking action himself, you see a cog in The Machine that governs us.

  John Jay Chapman

John Jay Chapman (28)

Birth:	2nd March, 1862
Death:	4th November, 1933
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Author, Essayist, Lawyer, Poet

About

John Jay Chapman was born in New York City, New York, USA. He was an American author, essayist, poet and lawyer. He studied at Harvard University and Harvard Law School. He was admitted to the bar in 1888, and practiced law until 1898. He lectured on the need for reform and edited the journal The Political Nursery from 1897-1901. He wrote several books include: Emerson and Other Essays, Causes and Consequences (essays), Practical agitation, Four Plays for Children, The Maid's Forgiveness (play), A Sausage from Bologna (drama), Learning and other essays, The treason & death of Benedict Arnold (drama), Neptune's Isle and Other Plays for Children, William Lloyd Garrison (biography), Greek Genius, and Other Essays, Notes on Religion, Memories and milestones, Cupid and psyche, Songs and Poems (poetry), and A glance toward Shakespeare.

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