Freedom is not something that anybody can be given; freedom is something people take, and people are as free as they want to be.
—James Baldwin, 1961
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Quotes
The transition from tenseness, self-responsibility, and worry to equanimity, receptivity, and peace is the most wonderful of all those shiftings of inner equilibrium, those changes of personal center of energy.
—William James, 1902Courage and grace is a formidable mixture. The only place to see it is in the bullring.
—Marlene Dietrich, 1962We call them dumb animals, and so they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words.
—Anna Sewell, 1877Better no law than no law enforced.
—Danish proverbWe don’t have the option of turning away from the future. No one gets to vote on whether technology is going to change our lives.
—Bill Gates, 1995Because the newer methods of treatment are good, it does not follow that the old ones were bad: for if our honorable and worshipful ancestors had not recovered from their ailments, you and I would not be here today.
—Confucius, c. 515 BCEnvy and hatred are apt to blind the eyes and render them unable to behold things as they are.
—Margaret of Valois, c. 1600All our enemies are mortal.
—Paul Valéry, 1942No matter how much cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.
—Abraham LincolnThe basis of optimism is sheer terror.
—Oscar Wilde, 1891What can you conceive more silly and extravagant than to suppose a man racking his brains and studying night and day how to fly?
—William Law, 1728Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.
—Aleister Crowley, 1904