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Quotes

What harm is there in getting knowledge and learning, were it from a sot, a pot, a fool, a winter mitten, or an old slipper? 

—François Rabelais, 1533

It is better to live unknown to the law.

—Irish proverb

I have often been convinced that a democracy is incapable of empire.

—Thucydides, c. 404 BC

The U.S. presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones.

—Anthony Burgess, 1972

A true German can’t stand the French, / Yet willingly he drinks their wines.

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1832

I know what I have given you. I do not know what you have received.

—Antonio Porchia, 1943

After midnight the moon set and I was alone with the stars. I have often said that the lure of flying is the lure of beauty, and I need no other flight to convince me that the reason flyers fly, whether they know it or not, is the aesthetic appeal of flying.

—Amelia Earhart, 1935

The physician should look upon the patient as a besieged city and try to rescue him with every means that art and science place at his command.

—Alexander of Tralles, c. 600

Friendships begin with liking or gratitude—roots that can be pulled up.

—George Eliot, 1876

At night comes counsel to the wise.

—Menander, c. 300 BC

It belongs to a nobleman to weep in an hour of disaster.

—Euripides, 412 BC

Everyone who is sick is someone else’s patient zero.

—Leslie Jamison, 2020

When a traveler returneth home, let him not leave the countries where he hath traveled altogether behind him.

—Francis Bacon, 1625