Archive

Quotes

History does not merely touch on language, but takes place in it.

—Theodor Adorno, c. 1946

Every fool becomes a philosopher after ten days of rain.

—Clover Adams, 1882

A functioning police state needs no police.

—William S. Burroughs, 1959

Far water cannot quench near fire.

—Japanese proverb

We wish away whole years, and travel through time as through a country filled with many wild and empty wastes, which we would fain hurry over, that we may arrive at those several little settlements or imaginary points of rest which are dispersed up and down in it.

—Joseph Addison, 1711

Do you suppose it possible to know democracy without knowing the people?

—Xenophon, c. 370 BC

The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it.

—John Locke, 1695

Everything that deceives does so by casting a spell.

—Plato, c. 375 BC

Shamelessness is the shame of being without shame.

—Mencius, c. 290 BC

Memory is necessary for all operations of reasoning.

—Blaise Pascal, c. 1658

The money market is to a commercial nation what the heart is to man.

—William Pitt, 1805

He makes his cook his merit, and the world visits his dinners and not him.

—Molière, 1666

God seems to have left the receiver off the hook, and time is running out.

—Arthur Koestler, 1967