They are trying to make me into a fixed star. I am an irregular planet.
—Martin Luther, c. 1530
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Quotes
Think where man’s glory most begins and ends, / And say my glory was I had such friends.
—W.B. Yeats, 1937We must select the illusion which appeals to our temperament and embrace it with passion if we want to be happy.
—Cyril Connolly, 1944According to the law of custom, and perhaps of reason, foreign travel completes the education of an English gentleman.
—Edward Gibbon, c. 1794When a coward sees a man he can beat, he becomes hungry for a fight.
—Chinua Achebe, 1960Every city has a sex and an age which have nothing to do with demography. Rome is feminine. So is Odessa. London is a teenager, an urchin, and in this hasn’t changed since the time of Dickens. Paris, I believe, is a man in his twenties in love with an older woman.
—John Berger, 1987There is nothing sillier than a silly laugh.
—Catullus, c. 60 BCMany need no other provocation to enmity than that they find themselves excelled.
—Samuel Johnson, 1751Fashion, n. A despot whom the wise ridicule and obey.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1911Man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes and pompous in the grave.
—Thomas Browne, 1658Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.
—Mao Zedong, 1938Envy and hatred are apt to blind the eyes and render them unable to behold things as they are.
—Margaret of Valois, c. 1600I cannot live without books, but fewer will suffice where amusement, and not use, is the only future object.
—Thomas Jefferson, 1815