Do that which consists in taking no action, and order will prevail.
—Laozi, c. 500 BC
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Quotes
Great cities must ever be centers of light and darkness, the home of the best and the worst of our race, holding within themselves the highest talent for good and evil.
—Matthew Hale Smith, 1868People who’ve drunk neat wine don’t care a damn.
—Hipponax, c. 550 BCThe aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.
—Aristotle, c. 350 BCEvery communist must grasp the truth: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”
—Mao Zedong, 1938There is no small pleasure in sweet water.
—Ovid, c. 10No preacher is listened to but time, which gives us the same train and turn of thought that elder people have in vain tried to put into our heads before.
—Jonathan Swift, 1706A win always seems shallow: it is the loss that is so profound and suggests nasty infinities.
—E.M. Forster, 1919Rivalry is the whetstone of talent.
—Roman proverbImagine a number of men in chains, all under sentence of death, some of whom are each day butchered in the sight of the others; those remaining see their own condition in that of their fellows and, looking at each other with grief and despair, await their turn. This is an image of the human condition.
—Blaise Pascal, 1669I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.
—Susan Sontag, 1977I think that to get under the surface and really appreciate the beauty of any country, one has to go there poor.
—Grace Moore, 1944If I lose at play, I blaspheme, and if my fellow loses, he blasphemes. So that God is always sure to be the loser.
—John Donne, 1623