The gods play games with men as balls.
—Plautus, c. 200 BC
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Quotes
When they shout “Long live progress,” always ask, “Progress of what?”
—Stanisław Jerzy Lec, 1957My ideas are clear. My orders are precise. Within five years, Rome must appear marvelous to all the people of the world—vast, orderly, powerful, as in the time of the empire of Augustus.
—Benito Mussolini, 1929Man’s great mission is not to conquer nature by main force but to cooperate with her intelligently but lovingly for his own purposes.
—Lewis Mumford, 1962To gaze upon a drop of water is to behold the nature of all the waters of the universe.
—Huangbo Xiyun, c. 850It is weak and silly to say you cannot bear what it is your fate to be required to bear.
—Charlotte Brontë, 1847The Founding Fathers in their wisdom decided that children were an unnatural strain on parents. So they provided jails called schools, equipped with tortures called an education. School is where you go between when your parents can’t take you and industry can’t take you.
—John Updike, 1963No man has any natural authority over his fellow man.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1762I imagine that one of the first forms of behavior, like one of the first signals, may be reduced to this: “Keep me warm.”
—Michel Serres, 1982If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.
—Dorothy ParkerThose who trust to chance must abide by the results of chance.
—Calvin Coolidge, 1932A joke is at most a temporary rebellion against virtue, and its aim is not to degrade the human being but to remind him that he is already degraded.
—George Orwell, 1945Childhood has no forebodings—but then, it is soothed by no memories of outlived sorrow.
—George Eliot, 1860