The best augury of a man’s success in his profession is that he thinks it the finest in the world.
—George Eliot, 1876
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Quotes
The tendency of democracies is, in all things, to mediocrity.
—James Fenimore Cooper, 1838Water is the first principle of everything.
—Thales of Miletus, c. 600 BCThe man in constant fear is every day condemned.
—Publilius Syrus, c. 50 BCSome writers take to drink, others take to audiences.
—Gore Vidal, 1981The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.
—Dean Acheson, 1970The workers are the saviors of society, the redeemers of the race.
—Eugene V. Debs, 1905I’ve a grand memory for forgetting.
—Robert Louis Stevenson, 1886It is weak and silly to say you cannot bear what it is your fate to be required to bear.
—Charlotte Brontë, 1847Grow your tree of falsehood from a small grain of truth.
—Czeslaw Milosz, 1946Without doubt God is the universal moving force, but each being is moved according to the nature that God has given it. He directs angels, man, animals, brute matter, in sum all created things—but each according to its nature—and man having been created free, he is freely led. This rule is truly the eternal law and in it we must believe.
—Joseph de Maistre, 1821Language is a part of our organism and no less complicated than it.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1915Shamelessness is the shame of being without shame.
—Mencius, c. 290 BC