Profit is profit even in Mecca.
—Nigerian proverb
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Quotes
Alcohol is the monarch of liquids.
—Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, 1825Revolutions are always verbose.
—Leon Trotsky, 1933Those who give the first shock to a state are the first overwhelmed in its ruin; the fruits of public commotion are seldom enjoyed by him who was the first mover; he only beats the water for another’s net.
—Michel de Montaigne, 1580Great cities must ever be centers of light and darkness, the home of the best and the worst of our race, holding within themselves the highest talent for good and evil.
—Matthew Hale Smith, 1868The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honor or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1774An American will build a house in which to pass his old age and sell it before the roof is on.
—Alexis de Tocqueville, 1840Those who believe in freedom of the will have never loved and never hated.
—Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, 1893The only places where American medicine can fully live up to its possibilities are the teaching hospitals.
—Bernard De Voto, 1951Exile lacks the grandeur, the majesty, of expatriation.
—Bharati Mukherjee, 1999History does not merely touch on language, but takes place in it.
—Theodor Adorno, c. 1946All progress is based upon a universal, innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.
—Samuel Butler, c. 1890Art is our chief means of breaking bread with the dead.
—W.H. Auden, c. 1940