There lurks in every human heart a desire of distinction which inclines every man first to hope and then to believe that nature has given him something peculiar to himself.
—Samuel Johnson, 1763
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Quotes
The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
—Aristotle, c. 330 BCHe that commands the sea is at great liberty and may take as much and as little of the war as he will.
—Francis Bacon, c. 1600Men are merriest when they are from home.
—William Shakespeare, 1599Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.
—Mao Zedong, 1938When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong.
—Eugene V. Debs, 1918The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletariat to the level of bourgeois stupidity.
—Gustave Flaubert, 1871What man was ever content with one crime?
—Juvenal, c. 125Everything that has wings is beyond the reach of the law.
—Joseph Joubert, 1791My interest is in the future, because I am going to spend the rest of my life there.
—Charles F. Kettering, 1946If the bird does like its cage, and does like its sugar, and will not leave it, why keep the door so very carefully shut?
—Olive Schreiner, 1883’Tis a portentous sign / When a man sweats and at the same time shivers.
—Plautus, c. 180 BCA man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.
—James Joyce, 1922