The more corrupt the state, the more numerous its laws.
—Tacitus, c. 110Quotes
An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.
—James Russell Lowell, c. 1865The righteous know the needs of their animals, but the mercy of the wicked is cruel.
—Book of Proverbs, c. 500 BCUnder the wide and starry sky, / Dig the grave and let me lie.
—Robert Louis Stevenson, 1887Whole nations have melted away like balls of snow before the sun.
—Dragging Canoe, 1775Nothing so fortifies a friendship as a belief on the part of one friend that he is superior to the other.
—Honoré de Balzac, 1847I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigrees of nations.
—Samuel Johnson, 1773It is not flesh and blood but the heart which makes us fathers and sons.
—Friedrich Schiller, 1781People will never fight for your freedom if you have not given evidence that you are prepared to fight for it yourself.
—Bayard Rustin, 1986Go to the ant, you lazybones; consider its ways, and be wise.
—Book of Proverbs, c. 350 BCDon’t you find it a beautiful clean thought, a world empty of people, just uninterrupted grass, and a hare sitting up?
—D.H. Lawrence, 1920The poets did well to conjoin music and medicine, because the office of medicine is but to tune the curious harp of man’s body.
—Francis Bacon, 1605The self is like an infant: given free rein, it craves to suckle.
—al-Busiri, c. 1250