Men were born to lie, and women to believe them.
—John Gay, 1728
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Quotes
’Tis a portentous sign / When a man sweats and at the same time shivers.
—Plautus, c. 180 BCOften an entire city has suffered because of an evil man.
—Hesiod, c. 700 BCNothing worth knowing can be understood with the mind.
—Woody Allen, 1979The misfortune of the man of color is having been enslaved. The misfortune and inhumanity of the white man are having killed man somewhere.
—Frantz Fanon, 1952The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws.
—Tacitus, c. 117Though the boys throw stones at frogs in sport, yet the frogs do not die in sport but in earnest.
—Bion of Smyrna, c. 100 BCHad Cleopatra’s nose been shorter, the whole face of the world would have changed.
—Blaise Pascal, 1658In every man is a wild beast; most of them don’t know how to hold it back, and the majority give it full rein when they are not restrained by terror of law.
—Frederick the Great, 1759He knows the water best who has waded through it.
—Danish proverbDo not the most moving moments of our lives find us all without words?
—Marcel Marceau, 1958Power is so apt to be insolent, and Liberty to be saucy, that they are very seldom upon good terms.
—George Savile, c. 1690Animals are in possession of themselves; their soul is in possession of their body. But they have no right to their life, because they do not will it.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, 1821