Man is the one name belonging to every nation upon earth: there is one soul and many tongues, one spirit and various sounds; every country has its own speech, but the subjects of speech are common to all.
—Tertullian, c. 217
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Quotes
Diseases are not immutable entities but dynamic social constructions that have biographies of their own.
—Robert P. Hudson, 1983The brain is an unreliable organ, it is monstrously great, monstrously developed. Swollen, like a goiter.
—Aleksandr Blok, c. 1920Let my epitaph be, “Here lies Joseph, who failed in everything he undertook.”
—Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, 1790That which is evil is soon learned.
—John Ray, 1670Anyone who in discussion quotes authority uses his memory rather than his intellect.
—Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1500All 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. 1655The more corrupt the state, the more numerous its laws.
—Tacitus, c. 110The slander of some people is as great a recommendation as the praise of others.
—Henry Fielding, 1730I hate the whole race. There is no believing a word they say—your professional poets, I mean—there never existed a more worthless set than Byron and his friends for example.
—Duke of Wellington, c. 1810You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.
—Mario Cuomo, 1985Just as language no longer has anything in common with the thing it names, so the movements of most of the people who live in cities have lost their connection with the earth; they hang, as it were, in the air, hover in all directions, and find no place where they can settle.
—Rainer Maria Rilke, 1903The home is a human institution. All human institutions are open to improvement.
—Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 1903