Revolutionaries are greater sticklers for formality than conservatives.
—Italo Calvino, 1957
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Quotes
There lurks in every human heart a desire of distinction which inclines every man first to hope and then to believe that nature has given him something peculiar to himself.
—Samuel Johnson, 1763The young man must store up, the old man must use.
—Seneca the Younger, c. 63I cannot bear a parent’s tears.
—Virgil, c. 25 BCSome men never recover from education.
—Oliver St. John Gogarty, 1954One has to spend so many years in learning how to be happy.
—George Eliot, 1844Friendship itself will not stand the strain of very much good advice for very long.
—Robert Wilson Lynd, 1924One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.
—Elbert Hubbard, 1911I said of laughter, “It is mad,” and of pleasure, “What use is it?”
—Book of Ecclesiastes, 225 BCOligopoly, plutocracy, kleptocracy: All things that are good for a shareholder.
—James J. Cramer, 2006All men naturally hate each other. We have used concupiscence as best we can to make it serve the common good, but this is mere sham and a false image of charity, for essentially it is just hate.
—Blaise Pascal, c. 1655Music is a beautiful opiate, if you don’t take it too seriously.
—Henry Miller, 1945Fortune resists half-hearted prayers.
—Ovid, 8