Every country has the government it deserves.
—Joseph de Maistre, 1811
Archive
Quotes
We have forgotten how to be good guests, how to walk lightly on the earth as its other creatures do.
—Barbara Ward, 1972It is impossible to live pleasurably without living wisely, well, and justly, and impossible to live wisely, well, and justly without living pleasurably.
—Epicurus, c. 300 BCMany, many steeples would have to be stacked one on top of another to reach from the bottom to the surface of the sea. It is down there that the sea folk live.
—Hans Christian Andersen, 1837I do not mean to call an elephant a vulgar animal, but if you think about him carefully, you will find that his nonvulgarity consists in such gentleness as is possible to elephantine nature—not in his insensitive hide, nor in his clumsy foot, but in the way he will lift his foot if a child lies in his way; and in his sensitive trunk, and still more sensitive mind, and capability of pique on points of honor.
—John Ruskin, 1860The gods play games with men as balls.
—Plautus, c. 200 BCQuarreling must lead to disorder, and disorder exhaustion.
—Xunzi, c. 250 BCNo poems can please long, nor live, that are written by water drinkers.
—Horace, 35 BCAfrica has her mysteries, and even a wise man cannot understand them. But a wise man respects them.
—Miriam Makeba, 1988When we see a natural style we are quite amazed and delighted, because we expected to see an author and find a man.
—Blaise Pascal, c. 1657Revolution begins in putting on bright colors.
—Tennessee Williams, 1944Football causeth fighting, brawling, contention, quarrel picking, murder, homicide and great effusion of bloode, as daily experience teacheth.
—Philip Stubbes, 1583War is sweet to those who don’t know it.
—Erasmus, 1508