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Quotes

Yes to a market economy, no to a market society.

—Lionel Jospin, 1998

If we pretend to respect the artist at all, we must allow him his freedom of choice, in the face, in particular cases, of innumerable presumptions that the choice will not fructify. Art derives a considerable part of its beneficial exercise from flying in the face of presumptions.

—Henry James, 1884

The less intelligent the white man is, the more stupid he thinks the black.

—André Gide, 1927

From hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee.

—Herman Melville, 1851

If both what is before and what is after are in this same “now,” things which happened ten thousand years ago would be simultaneous with what has happened today, and nothing would be before or after anything else.

—Aristotle, c. 330 BC

All things are filled full of signs, and it is a wise man who can learn about one thing from another.

—Plotinus, c. 255

Anyone who has passed through the regular gradations of a classical education, and is not made a fool by it, may consider himself as having had a very narrow escape.

—William Hazlitt, 1821

Revolutions are not about trifles, but they are produced by trifles. 

—Aristotle, c. 350 BC

Slang is as old as speech and the congregating together of people in cities. It is the result of crowding and excitement and artificial life.

—John Camden Hotten, 1859

It’s only the futility of the first flood that prevents God from sending a second.

—Sébastien-Roch Nicolas Chamfort, c. 1794

If we do not maintain justice, justice will not maintain us.

—Francis Bacon, 1615

Fortune resists half-hearted prayers. 

—Ovid, 8

The period is not very remote when the benefits of a liberal and free commerce will, pretty generally, succeed to the devastations and horrors of war.

—George Washington, 1786