Never greet a stranger in the night, for he may be a demon.
—Babylonian Talmud, c. 600
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Quotes
In the name of Hippocrates doctors have invented the most exquisite form of torture ever known to man: survival.
—Luis Buñuel, 1983To put one’s trust in God is only a longer way of saying that one will chance it.
—Samuel Butler, c. 1890An oppressed people are authorized, whenever they can, to rise and break their fetters.
—Henry Clay, 1842Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1921Ridicule often checks what is absurd, and fully as often smothers that which is noble.
—Walter Scott, 1823Ah, there are no children nowadays.
—Molière, 1673This is Year Zero.
—Pol Pot, 1975As far as I can see, the history of experimental art in the twentieth century is intimately bound up with the experience of intoxification.
—Will Self, 1994The mind is led on, step by step, to defeat its own logic.
—Dai Vernon, 1994Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea? How did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea.
—Sydney Smith, 1855A man is not idle, because he is absorbed in thought. There is visible labor and there is an invisible labor.
—Victor Hugo, 1862True originality consists not in a new manner but in a new vision.
—Edith Wharton, 1924