The mill will never grind with water that is past.
—Daniel McCallum, 1870
Archive
Quotes
Governments are not overthrown by the poor, who have no power, but by the rich—when they are insulted by their inferiors and cannot obtain justice.
—Dionysius of Halicarnassus, c. 20 BCSpeak and speed; the close mouth catches no flies.
—Benjamin Franklin, c. 1732The human working stock is of interest only insofar as it is profitable.
—Simone de Beauvoir, 1970The sea hath no king but God alone.
—Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1881Law makes long spokes of the short stakes of men.
—William Empson, 1928The world is dying of machinery; that is the great disease, that is the plague that will sweep away and destroy civilization; man will have to rise against it sooner or later.
—George Moore, 1888’Tis the destroyer, or the devil, that scatters plagues about the world.
—Cotton Mather, 1693Drugs, cataplasms, and whiskey are stupid substitutes for the dignity and potency of divine mind and its efficacy to heal.
—Mary Baker Eddy, 1908Nowadays three witty turns of phrase and a lie make a writer.
—G.C. Lichtenberg, c. 1780Every revolution by force only puts more violent means of enslavement into the hands of the persons in power.
—Leo Tolstoy, 1893I have seen the science I worshipped, and the aircraft I loved, destroying the civilization I expected them to serve.
—Charles Lindbergh, 1948I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.
—Susan Sontag, 1977