Nothing is so easy to fake as the inner vision.
—Robertson Davies, 1985
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Quotes
The Mughal’s nature is such that they demand miracles, but if a miracle were to be performed by some upright follower of our religion, they would say that it had been brought about by magic and sorcery. They would strike him down with spears or would stone him to death.
—Fr. Antonio Monserrate, 1590The real question is not whether machines think but whether men do.
—B.F. Skinner, 1969The tendency of democracies is, in all things, to mediocrity.
—James Fenimore Cooper, 1838A mind lively and at ease can do with seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not answer.
—Jane Austen, 1815To love a woman who scorns you is to lick honey from a thorn.
—Welsh proverbGod writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but on trees and flowers and clouds and stars.
—Martin LutherWhen we define democracy now, it must still be as a thing hoped for but not seen.
—Pearl S. Buck, 1941Famous, adj. Conspicuously miserable.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1906Some memories are like lucky charms, talismans, one shouldn’t tell about them or they’ll lose their power.
—Iris Murdoch, 1985Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.
—Henry Kissinger, 1972The true mission of American sports is to prepare young men for war.
—Dwight D. Eisenhower, c. 1952’Tis a portentous sign / When a man sweats and at the same time shivers.
—Plautus, c. 180 BC