The first duty of a good inquisitor is to suspect especially those who seem sincere to him.
—Umberto Eco, 1980
Archive
Quotes
Life is the art of being well deceived.
—William Hazlitt, c. 1817In the name of Hippocrates doctors have invented the most exquisite form of torture ever known to man: survival.
—Luis Buñuel, 1983Whenever there is excess, an ax remedies it.
—Sumerian proverbWe are so constituted that we believe the most incredible things, and once they are engraved upon the memory, woe to him who would endeavor to erase them.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1774Written laws are like spiderwebs: they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful.
—Anacharsis, c. 550 BCNothing is more despicable than respect based on fear.
—Albert Camus, c. 1940All art is a revolt against man’s fate.
—André Malraux, 1951Our crime against criminals is that we treat them as villains.
—Friedrich Nietzsche, 1898The work of art, just like any fragment of human life considered in its deepest meaning, seems to me devoid of value if it does not offer the hardness, the rigidity, the regularity, the luster on every interior and exterior facet, of the crystal.
—André Breton, 1937Liberty and democracy are eternal enemies.
—H.L. Mencken, 1925You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.
—Mario Cuomo, 1985Men worry over the great number of diseases, while doctors worry over the scarcity of effective remedies.
—Bian Qiao, c. 500 BC