The Church says that the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in the shadow than in the Church.
—Ferdinand Magellan, c. 1510
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Quotes
Youth, youth, springtime of beauty.
—Anthem of the National Fascist Party, c. 1924O citizens, first acquire wealth; you can practice virtue afterward.
—Horace, c. 8 BCIn the past, men created witches; now they create mental patients.
—Thomas Szasz, 1970The basis of optimism is sheer terror.
—Oscar Wilde, 1891The mind is led on, step by step, to defeat its own logic.
—Dai Vernon, 1994If anything affects your eye, you hasten to have it removed; if anything affects your mind, you postpone the cure for a year.
—Horace, 20 BCThose from whom we were born have long since departed, and those with whom we grew up exist only in memory. We, too, through the approach of death, become, as it were, trees growing on the sandy bank of a river.
—Bhartrihari, c. 400I’m doomed to die, right? Why should I care if I go to Hades either with gout in my leg or a runner’s grace? Plenty of people will carry me there.
—Nicharchus, c. 90Often the prudent, far from making their destinies, succumb to them; it is destiny which makes them prudent.
—Voltaire, 1764A man is not idle, because he is absorbed in thought. There is visible labor and there is an invisible labor.
—Victor Hugo, 1862Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board.
—Zora Neale Hurston, 1937Fashion, n. A despot whom the wise ridicule and obey.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1911