If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
—Voltaire, 1764
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Quotes
Plagues are as certain as death and taxes.
—Richard Krause, 1982The sadness of the end of a career of an older athlete, with the betrayal of his body, is mirrored in the rest of us. Consciously or not, we know: there, soon, go I.
—Ira Berkow, 1987Youth, youth, springtime of beauty.
—Anthem of the National Fascist Party, c. 1924I have often been convinced that a democracy is incapable of empire.
—Thucydides, c. 404 BCOne’s friends are that part of the human race with which one can be human.
—George Santayana, c. 1914One need merely visit the marketplace and the graveyard to determine whether a city is in both physical and metaphysical order.
—Ernst Jünger, 1977The slander of some people is as great a recommendation as the praise of others.
—Henry Fielding, 1730The U.S. presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones.
—Anthony Burgess, 1972The purest joy is to live without disguise, unconstrained by the ties of a grave reputation.
—Al-Hariri, c. 1108Appearances often are deceiving.
—Aesop, c. 550 BCSpoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon.
—E.M. Forster, 1951I have always found it in mine own experience an easier matter to devise many and profitable inventions than to dispose of one of them to the good of the author himself.
—Hugh Plat, 1595