The world is wearied of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians.
—Benjamin Disraeli, 1870
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Quotes
It 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. 625No wise man ever wished to be younger.
—Jonathan Swift, 1706The mind is led on, step by step, to defeat its own logic.
—Dai Vernon, 1994And to our age’s drowsy blood / Still shouts the inspiring sea.
—James Russell Lowell, 1848The spirit of revolution, the spirit of insurrection, is a spirit radically opposed to liberty.
—François Guizot, 1830Every gift has a personality—that of its giver.
—Nuruddin Farah, 1992It is not my design to drink or sleep; my design is to make what haste I can to be gone.
—Oliver Cromwell, 1658It is impossible to tell which of the two dispositions we find in men is more harmful in a republic, that which seeks to maintain an established position or that which has none but seeks to acquire it.
—Niccolò Machiavelli, c. 1515I cannot bear a parent’s tears.
—Virgil, c. 25 BCMy father! The sun is my father, and the earth is my mother, and on her bosom I will recline.
—Tecumseh, 1810The fear of war is worse than war itself.
—Seneca, c. 50Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.
—Alexander Pope, 1738