What harm is there in getting knowledge and learning, were it from a sot, a pot, a fool, a winter mitten, or an old slipper?
—François Rabelais, 1533
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Quotes
You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.
—Cormac McCarthy, 2005Laughter always arises from a gaiety of disposition, absolutely incompatible with contempt and indignation.
—Voltaire, 1736The Church says that the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in the shadow than in the Church.
—Ferdinand Magellan, c. 1510The 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, 1970The young leading the young is like the blind leading the blind.
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 1747“Abroad,” that large home of ruined reputations.
—George Eliot, 1866All technologies should be assumed guilty until proven innocent.
—David Brower, 1992It is hell to belong to a suppressed minority.
—Claude McKay, 1937My people and I have come to an agreement that satisfies us both. They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please.
—Frederick the Great, c. 1770If they prescribe a lot of remedies for some sickness or other, it means that the sickness is incurable.
—Anton Chekhov, 1904Better free in a strange land than a slave at home.
—German proverbWe cannot say what the woman might be physically, if the girl were not allowed all the freedom of the boy in romping, climbing, swimming, playing whoop and ball.
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 1848