My stern chase after time is, to borrow a simile from Tom Paine, like the race of a man with a wooden leg after a horse.
—John Quincy Adams, 1844
Archive
Quotes
A society that has more justice is a society that needs less charity.
—Ralph Nader, 2000The people are the foundation of the state. If the foundations are firm, the state will be tranquil.
—Classic of History, c. 400 BCAs he brews, so shall he drink.
—Ben Jonson, 1598Alas! We are ridiculous animals.
—Horace Walpole, 1777Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.
—Oscar Wilde, 1890I have always found it in mine own experience an easier matter to devise many and profitable inventions than to dispose of one of them to the good of the author himself.
—Hugh Plat, 1595It’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, 1966Conservation is not merely a thing to be enshrined in outdoor museums, but a way of living on land.
—Aldo Leopold, 1933All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.
—Al Smith, 1933Let us have peace, but let us have liberty, law, and justice first.
—Frederick Douglass, 1878When law can do no right,
Let it be lawful that law bar no wrong.
That sweet bondage which is freedom’s self.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1813