Man is no man, but a wolf, to a stranger.
—Plautus, c. 200 BC
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Quotes
The thing that impresses me most about America is the way parents obey their children.
—Edward, Duke of Windsor, 1957All men naturally hate each other. We have used concupiscence as best we can to make it serve the common good, but this is mere sham and a false image of charity, for essentially it is just hate.
—Blaise Pascal, c. 1655It’s easy to be independent when you’ve got money. But to be independent when you haven’t got a thing—that’s the Lord’s test.
—Mahalia Jackson, 1966The brightest light burns the quickest.
—Olive Beatrice Muir, 1900I shall be an autocrat: that’s my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that’s his.
—Catherine the Great, c. 1796Don’t ever wear artistic jewelry; it wrecks a woman’s reputation.
—Colette, 1944A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.
—Martin Luther King Jr., c. 1967History is a people’s memory, and without a memory man is demoted to the level of the lower animals.
—Malcolm X, 1964The ingrained idea that, because there is no king and they despise titles, the Americans are a free people is pathetically untrue.
—Margot Asquith, 1922When they shout “Long live progress,” always ask, “Progress of what?”
—Stanisław Jerzy Lec, 1957A miracle entails a degree of irrationality—not because it shocks reason, but because it makes no appeal to it.
—Emmanuel Lévinas, 1952Divine nature gave the fields; human art built the cities.
—Marcus Terentius Varro, c. 70 BC