Freedom is not something that anybody can be given; freedom is something people take, and people are as free as they want to be.
—James Baldwin, 1961
Archive
Quotes
A woman should never be seen eating or drinking unless it be lobster salad and champagne, the only truly feminine and becoming viands.
—Lord Byron, 1812And to our age’s drowsy blood / Still shouts the inspiring sea.
—James Russell Lowell, 1848They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.
—Francis Bacon, 1605The history of the world is the record of the weakness, frailty, and death of public opinion.
—Samuel Butler, c. 1902To place oneself in the position of God is painful: being God is equivalent to being tortured. For being God means that one is in harmony with all that is, including the worst. The existence of the worst evils is unimaginable unless God willed them.
—Georges Bataille, 1957Tell us your phobias and we will tell you what you are afraid of.
—Robert Benchley, 1935Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made—through disobedience and through rebellion.
—Oscar Wilde, 1891There is nothing worse for mortals than a wandering life.
—Homer, c. 750 BCThe most beautiful makeup of a woman is passion. But cosmetics are easier to buy.
—Yves Saint Laurent, 1978Revolutions have never lightened the burden of tyranny, they have only shifted it to another shoulder.
—George Bernard Shaw, 1903I have loved justice and hated iniquity: therefore I die in exile.
—Gregory VII, c. 1085What one man can invent another can discover.
—Arthur Conan Doyle, 1905