The happiness of society is the end of government.
—John Adams, 1776
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Quotes
There is a sickness among tyrants: they cannot trust their friends.
—Aeschylus, c. 458 BCNo one makes a revolution by himself, and there are some revolutions which humanity accomplishes without quite knowing how, because it is everybody who takes them in hand.
—George Sand, 1851Only the little people pay taxes.
—Leona Helmsley, 1989If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.
—Dorothy ParkerUnfortunately, humanitarianism has been the mark of an inhuman time.
—G.K. Chesterton, 1932There is only one honest impulse at the bottom of puritanism, and that is the impulse to punish the man with a superior capacity for happiness.
—H.L. Mencken, 1920Where shall I, of wandering weary, find my resting place at last?
—Heinrich Heine, 1827A man who exposes himself when he is intoxicated has not the art of getting drunk.
—Samuel Johnson, 1779In Washington, the first thing people tell you is what their job is. In Los Angeles you learn their star sign. In Houston you’re told how rich they are. And in New York they tell you what their rent is.
—Simon Hoggart, 1990Language is a part of our organism and no less complicated than it.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1915When man wanted to make a machine that would walk, he created the wheel, which does not resemble a leg.
—Guillaume Apollinaire, 1917An honest man is all right even if he’s an idiot…but a crook must have brains.
—Maxim Gorky, 1902