Archive

Quotes

Possessions, outward success, publicity, luxury—to me these have always been contemptible. I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best both for the body and the mind.

—Albert Einstein, 1931

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.

—Shimon Peres, 1995

Two things only the people anxiously desire, bread and the circus games.

—Juvenal, c. 121

Football causeth fighting, brawling, contention, quarrel picking, murder, homicide and great effusion of bloode, as daily experience teacheth.

—Philip Stubbes, 1583

Good fortune turns aside destruction by a great god.

—Instructions of Ankhsheshonqy, c. 100 BC

A dead enemy always smells good.

—Aulus Vitellius, 69

Just to fill the hour—that is happiness.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1844

If they prescribe a lot of remedies for some sickness or other, it means that the sickness is incurable.

—Anton Chekhov, 1904

A college degree is a social certificate, not a proof of competence.

—Elbert Hubbard, 1911

I work for a government I despise for ends I think criminal.

—John Maynard Keynes, 1917

The surest guide to the correctness of the path that women take is joy in the struggle. Revolution is the festival of the oppressed.

—Germaine Greer, 1970

Greeting cards routinely tell us everybody deserves love. No. Everybody deserves clean water.

—Zadie Smith, 2000

Some folks want their luck buttered.

—Thomas Hardy, 1886