I imagine that one of the first forms of behavior, like one of the first signals, may be reduced to this: “Keep me warm.”
—Michel Serres, 1982
Archive
Quotes
Religion! How it dominates man’s mind, how it humiliates and degrades his soul. God is everything, man is nothing, says religion. But out of that nothing God has created a kingdom so despotic, so tyrannical, so cruel, so terribly exacting that naught but gloom and tears and blood have ruled the world since gods began.
—Emma Goldman, 1910It is not too much to expect that our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter.
—Lewis Strauss, 1954The twilight is the crack between the worlds.
—Carlos Castaneda, 1968The bathing was so delightful this morning, and Molly so pressing with me to enjoy myself, that I believe I stayed in rather too long, as since the middle of the day I have felt unreasonably tired. I shall be more careful another time, and shall not bathe tomorrow as I had before intended.
—Jane Austen, 1804I wants to make your flesh creep.
—Charles Dickens, 1837Nationalism is an infantile disease, the measles of mankind.
—Albert Einstein, 1929Fire is a natural symbol of life and passion, though it is the one element in which nothing can actually live.
—Susanne K. Langer, 1942What reason weaves, by passion is undone.
—Alexander Pope, 1972As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.
—Pope John Paul II, 1986All revolutions devour their own children.
—Ernst Röhm, 1933Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.
—Reinhold Niebuhr, 1944Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1921