Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth but not its twin.
—Barbara Kingsolver, 1990
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Quotes
Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.
—Joseph Stalin, 1934An unjust law is no law at all.
—Saint Augustine, 395If we pretend to respect the artist at all, we must allow him his freedom of choice, in the face, in particular cases, of innumerable presumptions that the choice will not fructify. Art derives a considerable part of its beneficial exercise from flying in the face of presumptions.
—Henry James, 1884Reality is always the foe of famous names.
—Petrarch, 1337Ashore it’s wine, women, and song; aboard it’s rum, bum, and concertina.
—British naval saying, c. 1800In America, everybody is, but some are more than others.
—Gertrude Stein, 1937I would much rather have men ask why I have no statue than why I have one.
—Cato the Elder, c. 184 BCThere are many civil questions that arise between individuals in which it is not so important the controversy be settled one way or another as that it be settled.
—William Howard Taft, 1921There is a vital force in rumor. Though crushed to earth, to all intents and purposes buried, it can rise again without apparent effort.
—Eleanor Robson Belmont, 1957If you would help another man, you must do so in minute particulars.
—William Blake, 1804The more religious a country is, the more crimes are committed in it.
—Napoleon Bonaparte, 1817Energy is the power that drives every human being. It is not lost by exertion but maintained by it, for it is a faculty of the psyche.
—Germaine Greer, 1970