Archive

Quotes

Democracy forever teases us with the contrast between its ideals and its realities, between its heroic possibilities and its sorry achievements.

—Agnes Repplier, 1916

All men naturally hate each other. We have used concupiscence as best we can to make it serve the common good, but this is mere sham and a false image of charity, for essentially it is just hate.

—Blaise Pascal, c. 1655

The land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of violence.

—The Bible

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.

—Shimon Peres, 1995

Memory is the only
afterlife I can understand.

—Lisel Mueller, 1996

When the abbot throws the dice, the whole convent will play.

—Martin Luther, c. 1540

What reason weaves, by passion is undone.

—Alexander Pope, 1972

Exchange is no robbery.

—German proverb

Luck is not something you can mention in the presence of self-made men.

—E.B. White, 1944

A tree’s a tree. How many more do you need to look at?

—Ronald Reagan, 1965

Till taught by pain, / Men really know not what good water’s worth.

—Lord Byron, 1819

There are people whom one loves immediately and forever. Even to know they are alive in the world with one is quite enough.

—Nancy Spain, 1956

Why is not a rat as good as a rabbit? Why should men eat shrimps and neglect cockroaches?

—Henry Ward Beecher, 1862