A god cannot procure death for himself, even if he wished it, which, so numerous are the evils of life, has been granted to man as our chief good.
—Pliny the Elder, c. 77
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Quotes
Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.
—E.B. White, 1944Youth, youth, springtime of beauty.
—Anthem of the National Fascist Party, c. 1924Night is torment. That is why people go to sleep. To avoid clear sight and torment.
—Dorothy M. Richardson, 1923Style is the image of character.
—Edward Gibbon, c. 1789All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.
—Toni Morrison, 1987Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term art, I should call it “the reproduction of what the senses perceive in nature through the veil of the soul.” The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of “artist.”
—Edgar Allan Poe, 1849Ah, there are no children nowadays.
—Molière, 1673By the blessing of the upright the city is exalted, but it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked.
—Book of Proverbs, c. 350 BCDon’t hit a man at all if you can avoid it, but if you have to hit him, knock him out.
—Theodore Roosevelt, 1916The power which the sea requires in the sailor makes a man of him very fast, and the change of shores and population clears his head of much nonsense of his wigwam.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1870No real friendship without absolute liberty.
—George Sand, 1866People living deeply have no fear of death.
—Anaïs Nin, 1935