We are to go to law never to revenge, but only to repair.
—Samuel Pepys, 1661
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Quotes
Whenever in history equality appeared on the agenda, it was exported somewhere else, like an undesirable.
—Mary McCarthy, 1971I have loved war too well.
—Louis XIV, 1715Epitaph, n. An inscription on a tomb, showing that virtues acquired by death have a retroactive effect.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1906What mighty contests rise from trivial things.
—Alexander Pope, 1712Water is the first principle of everything.
—Thales of Miletus, c. 600 BCWherever commerce prevails there will be an inequality of wealth, and wherever the latter does a simplicity of manners must decline.
—James Madison, 1783Art lives from constraints and dies from freedom.
—Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1480A traveler’s chief aim should be to make men wiser and better, and to improve their minds by the bad—as well as good—example of what they deliver concerning foreign places.
—Jonathan Swift, 1726Lord, I do not ask that thou shouldst give me wealth; only show me where it is, and I will attend to the rest.
—Kate Douglas Wiggin, 1898As man disappears from sight, the land remains.
—Maori proverbAnyone who has a child should train him to be either a physicist or a ballet dancer. Then he’ll escape.
—W.H. Auden, 1947Friendships begin with liking or gratitude—roots that can be pulled up.
—George Eliot, 1876