There is a kind of revolution of so general a character that it changes the mental tastes as well as the fortunes of the world.
—La Rochefoucauld, 1665
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Quotes
Oligopoly, plutocracy, kleptocracy: All things that are good for a shareholder.
—James J. Cramer, 2006If parents would only realize how they bore their children!
—George Bernard Shaw, c. 1910We call them dumb animals, and so they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words.
—Anna Sewell, 1877To live on a day-to-day basis is insufficient for human beings; we need to transcend, transport, escape; we need meaning, understanding, and explanation.
—Oliver Sacks, 2012Comedy, like sodomy, is an unnatural act.
—Marty Feldman, 1969If the people be the governors, who shall be governed?
—John Cotton, c. 1636The thirsty earth soaks up the rain, / And drinks, and gapes for drink again.
—Abraham Cowley, 1656The poets did well to conjoin music and medicine, because the office of medicine is but to tune the curious harp of man’s body.
—Francis Bacon, 1605When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber.
—Winston Churchill, 1945The gift of a common tongue is a priceless inheritance and it may well some day become the foundation of a common citizenship.
—Winston Churchill, 1943It belongs to a nobleman to weep in an hour of disaster.
—Euripides, 412 BCSome to the common pulpits, and cry out / “Liberty, freedom, and enfranchisement!”
—William Shakespeare, c. 1599