Archive

Quotes

I went [to war] because I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want the glory or the pay; I wanted the right thing done.

—Louisa May Alcott, 1863

If we do not maintain justice, justice will not maintain us.

—Francis Bacon, 1615

Better free in a strange land than a slave at home.

—German proverb

We seek with our human hands to create a second nature in the natural world.

—Marcus Tullius Cicero, 45 BC

It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.

—Dolores Ibárruri, 1936

You can’t find the soul with a scalpel.

—Gustave Flaubert, c. 1880

Friend! It is a common word, often lightly used. Like other good and beautiful things, it may be tarnished by careless handling.

—Harriet Jacobs, 1861

Many need no other provocation to enmity than that they find themselves excelled.

—Samuel Johnson, 1751

Technology is so much fun, but we can drown in our technology. The fog of information can drive out knowledge.

—Daniel Boorstin, 1978

Before the earth could become an industrial garbage can, it had first to become a research laboratory.

—Theodore Roszak, 1972

Your body is the church where nature asks to be reverenced.

—Marquis de Sade, 1797

The state dictates and coerces; religion teaches and persuades. The state enacts laws; religion gives commandments. The state is armed with physical force and makes use of it if need be; the force of religion is love and benevolence.

—Moses Mendelssohn, 1783

The real problem of humanity is the following: we have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology.

—Edward O. Wilson, 2009