By the blessing of the upright the city is exalted, but it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked.
—Book of Proverbs, c. 350 BC
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Quotes
Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.
—Reinhold Niebuhr, 1944New things are always ugly.
—Willa Cather, 1921You must not grow used to making money out of everything. One sees more people ruined than one has seen preserved by shameful gains.
—Sophocles, c. 442 BCAll that we know is nothing can be known.
—Lord Byron, 1812Often the prudent, far from making their destinies, succumb to them; it is destiny which makes them prudent.
—Voltaire, 1764Some memories are realities, and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again.
—Willa Cather, 1918There never was a good war or a bad peace.
—Benjamin Franklin, 1773Every city has a sex and an age which have nothing to do with demography. Rome is feminine. So is Odessa. London is a teenager, an urchin, and in this hasn’t changed since the time of Dickens. Paris, I believe, is a man in his twenties in love with an older woman.
—John Berger, 1987It is permitted to learn even from an enemy.
—Ovid, c. 8One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.
—Elbert Hubbard, 1911Revolutions are always verbose.
—Leon Trotsky, 1933What harm is there in getting knowledge and learning, were it from a sot, a pot, a fool, a winter mitten, or an old slipper?
—François Rabelais, 1533