Archive

Quotes

Water is the first principle of everything.

—Thales of Miletus, c. 600 BC

Everyone lives by selling something.

—Robert Louis Stevenson, 1892

Trade is a social act.

—John Stuart Mill, 1859

It’s your business when your neighbor’s wall is in flames.

—Horace, 19 BC

Whatever the apparent cause of any riots may be, the real one is always want of happiness.

—Thomas Paine, 1792

Most people who sneer at technology would starve to death if the engineering infrastructure were removed.

—Robert A. Heinlein, 1984

A school without grades must have been concocted by someone who was drunk on nonalcoholic wine.

—Karl Kraus, 1909

There ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.

—Mark Twain, 1894

Man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes and pompous in the grave.

—Thomas Browne, 1658

Night affords the most convenient shade for works of darkness.

—John Taylor, 1750

In every man is a wild beast; most of them don’t know how to hold it back, and the majority give it full rein when they are not restrained by terror of law.

—Frederick the Great, 1759

Nature resolves everything into its component elements, but annihilates nothing.

—Lucretius, c. 57 BC

Keep running after a dog, and he will never bite you.

—François Rabelais, 1535