Category Archives: Quotes

As every second post on this site is a quote. You’ll find a deep and broad variety of quotes under this category, which overlap with several other tags and categories. Many of the quotes are larded with links for deeper reading on the subject of the quote, or connections between the subject of the quotes and other people, things, or ideas. See the Taxonomies page for more about this category.

Mohegan

“Mohegan: Algonquian-speaking North American Indian people who inhabited the area of southeastern Connecticut. They later seized land in Massachusetts and Rhode Island from other tribes. Their economy was based on corn cultivation, hunting, and fishing. In the 17th century, the Mohegan and the Pequot tribes were ruled jointly by a Pequot chief, but a rebellion led to Mohegan independence and the destruction of the Pequot. Having made an alliance with the English, the Mohegan were the only important tribe remaining in New England after King Philip’s War (1675-76). Today there is a remnant (approximately 1,000) near Norwich, Connecticut.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

Tupian Languages

“Tupian Languages: Family of South American Indian languages with at least seven subgroups, spoken or formerly spoken in scattered areas from south French Guiana south to southernmost Brazil and Paraguay and east to eastern Bolivia. About a third of the estimated 37 known Tupian languages are extinct. The largest subgroup, Tupi-Guarani, includes the extinct language Tupinamba, the source for borrowings of many New World flora and fauna terms into Portuguese and hence other European languages. Another language of the subgroup, Guarani, is spoken as a first or second language by more than 90 percent of Paraguayans, who consider it a token of Paraguayan identity.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

Ojibwa or Chippewa

“Ojibwa or Chippewa: Algonquian-speaking Indian people who formerly inhabited a region north of the Great Lakes but who during the 17th-18th centuries moved west to what is now northern Minnesota. Each Ojibwa tribe was divided into migratory bands. In the autumn, bands separated into family units for hunting; in summer, families gathered at fishing sites. They grew corn and collected wild rice. The Midewiwin, or Grand Medicine Society, was the major Ojibwa religious organization. The Ojibwa are one of the largest Native American groups in North America today, numbering about 50,000 in the U.S. and over 100,000 in Canada.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

Mohawk

“Mohawk: Iroquoian-speaking people North American Indian people, the easternmost group of the Iroquois confederacy. The Mohawk lived near what is now Schenectady, New York, They were semisedentary; women practiced corn agriculture while men hunted during the fall and winter and fished during the summer. Related families lived together in longhouses. Most Mohawk sided with the British in both the French and Indian War and the American Revolution, in the latter under Joseph Brant. Today they number about 10,000 and work in various fields, notably the structural steel industry.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

Georges Clemenceau on the Passion of the Functionary

“There is no passion like that of a functionary for his function.”

Georges Clemenceau

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

The Devil’s Dictionary: Intoxication

“Intoxication, n. A spiritual condition that goeth before the next morning.”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000.

Coherence

“Coherence (noun): Order and sense in expression, or ease and interrelationship in arrangement of thoughts or parts of a sentence; logical consistency or clarity of syntax. Adjective: coherent; Adverb: coherently; Verb: cohere.

“Every man in the chapel hoped that when his hour came he, too, would be eulogized, which is to say forgiven, and that all of his lapses, greeds, errors, and strayings from the truth would be invested with coherence and looked upon with charity.’ James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son.”

Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.

Admiral Rickover on God and Bureaucracy

“If you are going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy. God will forgive you, but the bureaucracy won’t.”

Hyman Rickover

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

Fisher King

“Fisher King: One of the chief characters in medieval legends dealing with the quest for the Holy Grail. The Fisher King was the keeper of the Grail relics, including the spear of Longinus used to wound Jesus as he hung on the cross. The Fisher King suffered from a wound made by the same spear. The wound destroyed the Fisher King’s virility and, by a sympathetic transference, turned his realm into a wasteland. A new and purer guardian of the relics, in the form of the Grail hero, must intervene (see GALAHAD). The task of the hero is not simply to find the relics themselves, which had been stolen, but also to free the king so he may die a peaceful death and bring life and fertility back to the king’s realm. See WASTE LAND, THE.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

Term of Art: Systematic Phonics

“systematic phonics: Direct reading instruction that explicitly teaches the relationships between letters and sounds in a sequence of interconnected lessons.”

Excerpted from: Ravitch, Diane. EdSpeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords, and Jargon. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2007.