Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.
—Paul Valéry, 1943
Archive
Quotes
The United States has virtually set up an empire on impounded and redistributed water.
—Charles P. Berkey, 1946Shame on the soul, to falter on the road of life while the body still perseveres.
—Marcus Aurelius, c. 170No matter how much cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.
—Abraham LincolnHe who sings frightens away his ills.
—Miguel de Cervantes, 1605Nobody, who has not been in the interior of a family, can say what the difficulties of any individual of that family may be.
—Jane Austen, 1815I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be a Catholic) how to act and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote.
—John F. Kennedy, 1960Soldiers in peace are like chimneys in summer.
—William Cecil, Lord Burghley, c. 1555A god cannot procure death for himself, even if he wished it, which, so numerous are the evils of life, has been granted to man as our chief good.
—Pliny the Elder, c. 77Alongside all swindlers the state now stands there as swindler-in-chief.
—Jacob Burckhardt, c. 1875Some to the common pulpits, and cry out / “Liberty, freedom, and enfranchisement!”
—William Shakespeare, c. 1599No city should be too large for a man to walk out of in a morning.
—Cyril Connolly, 1944What is outside my mind means nothing to it.
—Marcus Aurelius, c. 170