The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
—Thomas Jefferson, 1787
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Quotes
As the saying goes, an old woman is always uneasy when dry bones are mentioned in a proverb.
—Chinua Achebe, 1958When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong.
—Eugene V. Debs, 1918The fact is certain because it is impossible.
—Tertullian, c. 200In large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad.
—Friedrich Nietzsche, 1878A regime which combines perpetual surveillance with total indulgence is hardly conducive to healthy development.
—P.D. James, 1992Even diseases have lost their prestige, there aren’t so many of them left.
—Louis-Ferdinand Céline, 1960Anyone who’s never experienced the pleasure of betrayal doesn’t know what pleasure is.
—Jean Genet, 1986Water astonishing and difficult altogether makes a meadow and a stroke.
—Gertrude Stein, 1914The law looks at no one’s face.
—Gabriel Okara, 1964Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.
—Oscar Wilde, 1893The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes “sightseeing.”
—Daniel Boorstin, 1961Language is the archives of history.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1844