What keeps the democracy alive at all but the hatred of excellence, the desire of the base to see no head higher than their own?
—Mary Renault, 1956
Archive
Quotes
Religion is by no means a proper subject of conversation in mixed company.
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 1754Will and energy sometimes prove greater than either genius or talent or temperament.
—Isadora Duncan, c. 1902In large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad.
—Friedrich Nietzsche, 1878Famous, adj. Conspicuously miserable.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1906It is so difficult not to become vain about one’s own good luck.
—Simone de Beauvoir, 1963Profit is profit even in Mecca.
—Nigerian proverbAnd then, sir, there is this consideration: that if the abuse be enormous, nature will rise up and, claiming her original rights, overturn a corrupt political system.
—Samuel Johnson, 1791None who have always been free can understand the terrible fascinating power of the hope of freedom to those who are not free.
—Pearl S. Buck, 1943It is hell to belong to a suppressed minority.
—Claude McKay, 1937One has to spend so many years in learning how to be happy.
—George Eliot, 1844Imagination is the secret and marrow of civilization. It is the very eye of faith.
—Henry Ward Beecher, 1887A false report rides post.
—English proverb