Archive

Quotes

People revere the Constitution yet know so little about it—and that goes for some of my fellow senators.

—Robert Byrd, 2005

The earth is beautiful and bright and kindly, but that is not all. The earth is also terrible and dark and cruel.

—Ursula K. Le Guin, 1970

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

—H.L. Mencken, 1921

The only function of a school is to make self-education easier.

—Isaac Asimov, 1974

A false report rides post.

—English proverb

I quit life as from an inn, not as from a home.

—Marcus Tullius Cicero, 44 BC

Medication alone is not to be relied on. In one half the cases medicine is not needed, or is worse than useless. Obedience to spiritual and physical laws—hygiene of the body and hygiene of the spirit—is the surest warrant for health and happiness.

—Harriot K. Hunt, 1856

We have to distrust each other. It is our only defense against betrayal.

—Tennessee Williams, 1953

Refrigerators and television sets, or even rockets sent to the moon, do not change man into God.

—Czesław Miłosz, 1960

An electoral choice of ten different fascists is like choosing which way one wishes to die.

—George Jackson, 1971

God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant, and the cat. He has no real style. He just goes on trying other things.

—Pablo Picasso, 1964

The brightest light burns the quickest.

—Olive Beatrice Muir, 1900

The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways—I to die, and you to live. Which is better, only the god knows.

—Socrates, 399 BC