The tune I remember, could I but keep the words.
—Virgil, 38 BC
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Quotes
What is outside my mind means nothing to it.
—Marcus Aurelius, c. 170Insurrection of thought always precedes insurrection of arms.
—Wendell Phillips, 1859Again, men in general desire the good, and not merely what their fathers had.
—Aristotle, c. 350 BCNothing is so easy to fake as the inner vision.
—Robertson Davies, 1985A passion for horses, players, and gladiators seems to be the epidemic folly of the times. The child receives it in his mother’s womb; he brings it with him into the world, and in a mind so possessed, what room for science, or any generous purpose?
—Tacitus, c. 100Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business.
—Tom Robbins, 1976To safeguard one’s health at the cost of too strict a diet is a tiresome illness indeed.
—La Rochefoucauld, 1678The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. And I knew we’d get into that rotten stuff pretty soon. Probably at the next gas station.
—Hunter S. Thompson, 1971Labor is no disgrace.
—Hesiod, c. 700 BCHe who dies of epidemic disease is a martyr.
—Muhammad, c. 630A friend in power is a friend lost.
—Henry Adams, 1905If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great streetsweeper that did his job well.
—Martin Luther King Jr., 1954