The greatest veneration one can show the law is to keep a watch on it.
—Nadine Gordimer, 1971
Archive
Quotes
The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws.
—Tacitus, c. 117The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways—I to die, and you to live. Which is better, only the god knows.
—Socrates, 399 BCIf you would help another man, you must do so in minute particulars.
—William Blake, 1804It is men who make a city, not walls or ships.
—Thucydides, 410 BCI doubt that we have any right to pity the dead for their own sakes.
—Lord Byron, 1817Laughter almost ever cometh of things most disproportioned to ourselves and nature. Laughter hath only a scornful tickling.
—Philip Sidney, 1582They are trying to make me into a fixed star. I am an irregular planet.
—Martin Luther, c. 1530Divine nature gave the fields; human art built the cities.
—Marcus Terentius Varro, c. 70 BCWhatsoever is, is in God.
—Benedict de Spinoza, 1677Pride and excess bring disaster for man.
—Xunzi, 250 BCIt was funny how I could feel all alone and under surveillance at the same time.
—Cory Doctorow, 2013“I think, therefore I am” is the statement of an intellectual who underrates toothaches.
—Milan Kundera, 1990