If you steal, do not steal too much at a time. You may be arrested. Steal cleverly, little by little.
—Mobutu Sese Seko, 1991
Archive
Quotes
Sick, irritated, and the prey to a thousand discomforts, I go on with my labor like a true workingman, who, with sleeves rolled up, in the sweat of his brow, beats away at his anvil, not caring whether it rains or blows, hails or thunders.
—Gustave Flaubert, 1845Whether for good or evil, it is sadly inevitable that all political leadership requires the artifices of theatrical illusion. In the politics of a democracy, the shortest distance between two points is often a crooked line.
—Arthur Miller, 2001The true art of memory is the art of attention.
—Samuel Johnson, 1759The first mistake of art is to assume that it’s serious.
—Lester Bangs, 1971A dog starved at his master’s gate / Predicts the ruin of the state.
—William Blake, 1807If you stain clear water with filth, you will never find a drink.
—Aeschylus, 458 BCThe enlightened man says: I am body entirely and nothing beside.
—Friedrich Nietzsche, 1883Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
—B.F. Skinner, 1964Traveling is like flirting with life. It’s like saying, “I would stay here and love you, but I have to go; this is my station.”
—Lisa St. Aubin de Terán, 1989When the abbot throws the dice, the whole convent will play.
—Martin Luther, c. 1540Education has become a prisoner of contemporaneity. It is the past, not the dizzy present, that is the best door to the future.
—Camille Paglia, 1992It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.
—Frederick Douglass, 1852