Darkness endows the small and ordinary ones among mankind with poetical power.
—Thomas Hardy, 1874
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Quotes
The state dictates and coerces; religion teaches and persuades. The state enacts laws; religion gives commandments. The state is armed with physical force and makes use of it if need be; the force of religion is love and benevolence.
—Moses Mendelssohn, 1783Some of us would be greatly astonished to learn the reasons why others respect us.
—Marquis de Vauvenargues, 1746Laughter almost ever cometh of things most disproportioned to ourselves and nature. Laughter hath only a scornful tickling.
—Philip Sidney, 1582Travelers, poets, and liars are three words all of one significance.
—Richard Brathwaite, 1631He that raises a large family, does indeed, while he lives to observe them, stand…a broader mark for sorrow; but then he stands a broader mark for pleasure too.
—Benjamin Franklin, 1786I am a living symbol of the white man’s fear.
—Winnie Mandela, 1985The beginning of health lies in knowing the disease.
—Miguel de Cervantes, 1615Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.
—Samuel Johnson, 1780Everyone knows about everybody in Hollywood—who sleeps with whom, who doesn’t sleep, who does it standing on his head or in the dentist’s chair.
—Rock Hudson, 1982He alone who owns the youth gains the future.
—Adolf Hitler, 1935The period of a [Persian] boy’s education is between the ages of five and twenty, and he is taught three things only: to ride, to use the bow, and to speak the truth.
—Herodotus, c. 440 BCIt was lonesome, the leaving.
—Wetatonmi, c. 1877