Pride and excess bring disaster for man.
—Xunzi, 250 BC
Archive
Quotes
Never make a defense or apology before you be accused.
—Charles I, 1636All successful revolutions are the kicking in of a rotten door. The violence of revolutions is the violence of men who charge into a vacuum.
—John Kenneth Galbraith, 1977Each night’s new terror drives away the terror of the night before.
—Sophocles, c. 450 BCNecessity knows no law except to conquer.
—Publilius Syrus, c. 50 BCWhatever the apparent cause of any riots may be, the real one is always want of happiness.
—Thomas Paine, 1792Divine nature gave the fields; human art built the cities.
—Marcus Terentius Varro, c. 70 BCEvery revolution by force only puts more violent means of enslavement into the hands of the persons in power.
—Leo Tolstoy, 1893Nothing is hidden from the eyes of the observing world.
—Aleksandr Pushkin, 1837There is only one honest impulse at the bottom of puritanism, and that is the impulse to punish the man with a superior capacity for happiness.
—H.L. Mencken, 1920The mind is not, I know, a highway but a temple, and its doors should not be carelessly left open.
—Margaret Fuller, 1844Even though counting heads is not an ideal way to govern, at least it is better than breaking them.
—Learned Hand, 1932What is outside my mind means nothing to it.
—Marcus Aurelius, c. 170