When man wanted to make a machine that would walk, he created the wheel, which does not resemble a leg.
—Guillaume Apollinaire, 1917
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Quotes
Democracy is the fig leaf of elitism.
—Florence King, 1989War to the castles; peace to the cottages.
—Nicolas Chamfort, 1790Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o’clock is a scoundrel.
—Samuel Johnson, c. 1770The winds and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.
—Edward Gibbon, 1788If the people be the governors, who shall be governed?
—John Cotton, c. 1636Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1906We often give our enemies the means for our own destruction.
—Aesop, c. 600 BCGod is making commerce his missionary.
—Joseph Cook, c. 1877All that we know is nothing can be known.
—Lord Byron, 1812He is the best physician who is the most ingenious inspirer of hope.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1833Water astonishing and difficult altogether makes a meadow and a stroke.
—Gertrude Stein, 1914Do you suppose that will change the sense of the morals, the fact that we can’t use morals as a means of judging the city because we couldn’t stand it? And that we’re changing our whole moral system to suit the fact that we’re living in a ridiculous way?
—Philip Johnson, 1965