Rivalry is the whetstone of talent.
—Roman proverb
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Quotes
What harm is there in getting knowledge and learning, were it from a sot, a pot, a fool, a winter mitten, or an old slipper?
—François Rabelais, 1533It has always been my practice to cast a long paragraph in a single mold, to try it by my ear, to deposit it in my memory, but to suspend the action of the pen till I had given the last polish to my work.
—Edward Gibbon, c. 1790Who draws his sword against his prince must throw away the scabbard.
—James Howell, 1659The more laws, the more lawbreakers.
—Tao Te Ching, c. 500 BCIf my books had been any worse I should not have been invited to Hollywood, and if they had been any better I should not have come.
—Raymond Chandler, 1945Repetition is the mother of education.
—Jean Paul, 1807Nothing but a permanent body can check the imprudence of democracy.
—Alexander Hamilton, 1787We must not always talk in the marketplace of what happens to us in the forest.
—Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1850Men were born to lie, and women to believe them.
—John Gay, 1728In life our absent friend is far away: / But death may bring our friend exceeding near.
—Christina Rossetti, 1881It is not too much to expect that our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter.
—Lewis Strauss, 1954Fame is but the empty noise of madmen.
—Epictetus, c. 100