In most cases men willingly believe what they wish.
—Julius Caesar, 52 BC
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Quotes
He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.
—Francis Bacon, 1625Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.
—Saint Augustine, c. 400There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.
—Arthur Conan Doyle, 1891Fate leads the willing and drags along those who hang back.
—Cleanthes, c. 250 BCMy mother protected me from the world and my father threatened me with it.
—Quentin Crisp, 1968A passion for horses, players, and gladiators seems to be the epidemic folly of the times. The child receives it in his mother’s womb; he brings it with him into the world, and in a mind so possessed, what room for science, or any generous purpose?
—Tacitus, c. 100I am leaving the town to the invaders: increasingly numerous, mediocre, dirty, badly behaved, shameless tourists.
—Brigitte Bardot, 1989Men are what their mothers made them.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1860The work of art, just like any fragment of human life considered in its deepest meaning, seems to me devoid of value if it does not offer the hardness, the rigidity, the regularity, the luster on every interior and exterior facet, of the crystal.
—André Breton, 1937I say violence is necessary. It is as American as cherry pie.
—H. Rap Brown, 1967Shame on the soul, to falter on the road of life while the body still perseveres.
—Marcus Aurelius, c. 170God seems to have left the receiver off the hook, and time is running out.
—Arthur Koestler, 1967