Death from the bubonic plague is rated, with crucifixion, among the nastiest human experiences of all.
—Guy R. Williams, 1975
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Quotes
Governments are not overthrown by the poor, who have no power, but by the rich—when they are insulted by their inferiors and cannot obtain justice.
—Dionysius of Halicarnassus, c. 20 BCThe important thing, I think, is not to be bitter. You know, if it turns out that there is a God, I don’t think that he’s evil. I think that the worst thing you could say about him is that basically he’s an underachiever. After all, you know, there are worse things in life than death.
—Woody Allen, 1975He is the best physician who is the most ingenious inspirer of hope.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1833The hatred of relatives is the bitterest.
—Tacitus, 117Man and animals are really the conduit of food, the sepulcher of animals, and resting place of the dead, one causing the death of the other, making themselves the covering for the corruption of other dead bodies.
—Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1500I have always found it in mine own experience an easier matter to devise many and profitable inventions than to dispose of one of them to the good of the author himself.
—Hugh Plat, 1595There are some who, if a cat accidentally comes into the room, though they neither see it nor are told of it, will presently be in a sweat and ready to die away.
—Increase Mather, 1684I have sometimes thought that the laws ought not to punish those actions of evil which are committed when the senses are steeped in intoxication.
—Walt Whitman, 1842You may drive out nature with a pitchfork, yet she’ll be constantly running back.
—Horace, 20 BCThe foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt.
—Leviticus, c. 600 BCEvery individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony.
—William James, 1902Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.
—Herman Melville, 1851