Though the boys throw stones at frogs in sport, yet the frogs do not die in sport but in earnest.
—Bion of Smyrna, c. 100 BC
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Quotes
There is a sickness among tyrants: they cannot trust their friends.
—Aeschylus, c. 458 BCThe peasants alone are revolutionary, for they have nothing to lose and everything to gain. The starving peasant, outside the class system, is the first among the exploited to discover that only violence pays. For him there is no compromise, no possible coming to terms.
—Frantz Fanon, 1961Traveling is the ruin of all happiness! There’s no looking at a building here after seeing Italy.
—Fanny Burney, 1782No punishment has ever possessed enough power of deterrence to prevent the commission of crimes.
—Hannah Arendt, 1963Once any group in society stands in a relatively deprived position in relation to other groups, it is genuinely deprived.
—Margaret Mead, 1972Man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes and pompous in the grave.
—Thomas Browne, 1658My ideas are clear. My orders are precise. Within five years, Rome must appear marvelous to all the people of the world—vast, orderly, powerful, as in the time of the empire of Augustus.
—Benito Mussolini, 1929Animals have these advantages over man: they never hear the clock strike, they die without any idea of death, they have no theologians to instruct them, their last moments are not disturbed by unwelcome and unpleasant ceremonies, their funerals cost them nothing, and no one starts lawsuits over their wills.
—Voltaire, 1769If fame is only to come after death, I am in no hurry for it.
—Martial, c. 86The oldest voice in the world is the wind.
—Donald Culross Peattie, 1950Language is a part of our organism and no less complicated than it.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1915Rejoice, young man, while you are young, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Follow the inclination of your heart and the desire of your eyes, but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.
—Book of Ecclesiastes, c. 200 BC