The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws.
—Tacitus, c. 117
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Quotes
The mansion of modern freedoms stands on an ever-expanding base of fossil-fuel use.
—Dipesh Chakrabarty, 2008Under all speech that is good for anything, there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as eternity; speech is shallow as time.
—Thomas Carlyle, 1838Nothing puzzles me more than time and space, and yet nothing puzzles me less, for I never think about them.
—Charles Lamb, 1810Man’s great mission is not to conquer nature by main force but to cooperate with her intelligently but lovingly for his own purposes.
—Lewis Mumford, 1962There is no female mind. The brain is not an organ of sex. As well speak of a female liver.
—Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 1898Ridicule often checks what is absurd, and fully as often smothers that which is noble.
—Walter Scott, 1823You never enjoy the world aright, till the sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens, and crowned with the stars.
—Thomas Traherne, c. 1670The history of the world is the record of the weakness, frailty, and death of public opinion.
—Samuel Butler, c. 1902Avoid the talk of men. For talk is mischievous, light, and easily raised, but hard to bear and difficult to be rid of. Talk never wholly dies away when many people voice her: even talk is in some ways divine.
—Hesiod, c. 700 BCThere are people whom one loves immediately and forever. Even to know they are alive in the world with one is quite enough.
—Nancy Spain, 1956When we define democracy now, it must still be as a thing hoped for but not seen.
—Pearl S. Buck, 1941There’s hope a great man’s memory may outlive his life half a year.
—William Shakespeare, c. 1600