Nature’s rules have no exceptions.
—Herbert Spencer, 1851
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Quotes
The best physician is he who can distinguish the possible from the impossible.
—Herophilus, c. 290 BCWhether 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, 2001Some things are privileged from jest—namely, religion, matters of state, great persons, all men’s present business of importance, and any case that deserves pity.
—Francis Bacon, 1597Trade’s proud empire hastes to swift decay.
—Oliver Goldsmith, 1770Suffering has its limit, but fears are endless.
—Pliny the Younger, c. 108Once you hear the details of a victory it is hard to distinguish it from a defeat.
—Jean-Paul Sartre, 1951What a man does abroad by night requires and implies more deliberate energy than what he is encouraged to do in the sunshine.
—Henry David Thoreau, 1852Under the pressure of the cares and sorrows of our mortal condition, men have at all times and in all countries, called in some physical aid to their moral consolations—wine, beer, opium, brandy, or tobacco.
—Edmund Burke, 1795Do you suppose that will change the sense of the morals, the fact that we can’t use morals as a means of judging the city because we couldn’t stand it? And that we’re changing our whole moral system to suit the fact that we’re living in a ridiculous way?
—Philip Johnson, 1965That obtained in youth may endure like characters engraved in stones.
—Ibn Gabirol, 1040A bull contents himself with one meadow, and one forest is enough for a thousand elephants; but the little body of a man devours more than all other living creatures.
—Seneca the Younger, c. 64Many are the wonders of the world, and none so wonderful as man.
—Sophocles, c. 441 BC