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Quotes

Superstitions are habits rather than beliefs.

—Marlene Dietrich, 1962

No preacher is listened to but time, which gives us the same train and turn of thought that elder people have in vain tried to put into our heads before.

—Jonathan Swift, 1706

I’ve never understood why people consider youth a time of freedom and joy. It’s probably because they have forgotten their own.

—Margaret Atwood, 1976

Better free in a strange land than a slave at home.

—German proverb

There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.

—Oscar Wilde, 1891

As the saying goes, an old woman is always uneasy when dry bones are mentioned in a proverb.

—Chinua Achebe, 1958

The children of the revolution are always ungrateful, and the revolution must be grateful that it is so.

—Ursula K. Le Guin, 1983

Again, men in general desire the good, and not merely what their fathers had.

—Aristotle, c. 350 BC

The law looks at no one’s face.

—Gabriel Okara, 1964

The most may err as grossly as the few.

—John Dryden, 1681

We who officially value freedom of speech above life itself seem to have nothing to talk about but the weather.

—Barbara Ehrenreich, 1991

Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear.

—Albert Camus, c. 1940

Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.

—Samuel Johnson, 1750