Machines do not run in order to enable men to live, but we resign ourselves to feeding men in order that they may serve the machines.
—Simone Weil, 1934
Archive
Quotes
Fear has a smell, as love does.
—Margaret Atwood, 1972Man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes and pompous in the grave.
—Thomas Browne, 1658There is much difference between imitating a good man, and counterfeiting him.
—Benjamin Franklin, 1738If a parricide is more wicked than anyone who commits homicide—because he kills not merely a man but a near relative—without doubt worse still is he who kills himself, because there is none nearer to a man than himself.
—Saint Augustine, c. 420To cast aside obedience, and by popular violence to incite revolt, is treason, not against man only, but against God.
—Pope Leo XIII, 1885Never make a defense or apology before you be accused.
—Charles I, 1636But look, our seas are what we make of them, full of fish or not, opaque or transparent, red or black, high or smooth, narrow or bankless—and we are ourselves sea, sand, coral, seaweed, beaches, tides, swimmers, children, waves.
—Hélène Cixous, 1976Those who give the first shock to a state are the first overwhelmed in its ruin; the fruits of public commotion are seldom enjoyed by him who was the first mover; he only beats the water for another’s net.
—Michel de Montaigne, 1580Nothing is as obnoxious as other people’s luck.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1938Nothing from nothing ever yet was born.
—Lucretius, c. 58 BCDon’t hit a man at all if you can avoid it, but if you have to hit him, knock him out.
—Theodore Roosevelt, 1916Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.
—Benjamin Franklin, 1776