The mind is led on, step by step, to defeat its own logic.
—Dai Vernon, 1994
Archive
Quotes
The law is not the same at morning and at night.
—George Herbert, c. 1633Governments are not overthrown by the poor, who have no power, but by the rich—when they are insulted by their inferiors and cannot obtain justice.
—Dionysius of Halicarnassus, c. 20 BCMan is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve and from which he cannot escape.
—Erich Fromm, 1947My ideas are clear. My orders are precise. Within five years, Rome must appear marvelous to all the people of the world—vast, orderly, powerful, as in the time of the empire of Augustus.
—Benito Mussolini, 1929Nothing but a permanent body can check the imprudence of democracy.
—Alexander Hamilton, 1787Water its living strength first shows, / When obstacles its course oppose.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1815I have been ever of the opinion that revolutions are not to be evaded.
—Benjamin Disraeli, 1844The worship of opinion is, at this day, the established religion of the United States.
—Harriet Martineau, 1839Few sons are equal to their fathers; most fall short, all too few surpass them.
—Homer, c. 750 BCBy and large, mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off. They are the great vacationless class.
—Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 1955Unfortunately, humanitarianism has been the mark of an inhuman time.
—G.K. Chesterton, 1932There is a vital force in rumor. Though crushed to earth, to all intents and purposes buried, it can rise again without apparent effort.
—Eleanor Robson Belmont, 1957