The more enlightened our houses are, the more their walls ooze ghosts.
—Italo Calvino, 1967
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Quotes
The successful revolutionary is a statesman, the unsuccessful one a criminal.
—Erich Fromm, 1941If I see something sagging, dragging, or bagging, I’m going to go have the stuff tucked or plucked.
—Dolly Parton, 2003Man is a troublesome animal and therefore is not very manageable.
—Plato, c. 349 BCI doubt that we have any right to pity the dead for their own sakes.
—Lord Byron, 1817Power is so apt to be insolent, and Liberty to be saucy, that they are very seldom upon good terms.
—George Savile, c. 1690Wherever commerce prevails there will be an inequality of wealth, and wherever the latter does a simplicity of manners must decline.
—James Madison, 1783All the world is topsy-turvy, and it has been topsy-turvy ever since the plague.
—Jack London, 1912Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.
The subconscious is ceaselessly murmuring, and it is by listening to these murmurs that one hears the truth.
—Gaston Bachelard, 1960To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the need for thought.
—Henri Poincaré, 1903It is He who has subdued the ocean so that you may eat of its fresh fish and bring up from its depth ornaments to wear. Behold the ships plowing their course through it. All this, that you may seek His bounty and render thanks.
—The Qur’an, c. 625Drunkenness is the very sepulcher / Of man’s wit and his discretion.
—Geoffrey Chaucer, c. 1390