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Quotes

Never make a defense or apology before you be accused.

—Charles I, 1636

When law can do no right,
Let it be lawful that law bar no wrong.

—William Shakespeare, c. 1594

A brilliant boxing match, quicksilver in its motions, transpiring far more rapidly than the mind can absorb, can have the power that Emily Dickinson attributed to great poetry: you know it’s great when it takes the top of your head off.

—Joyce Carol Oates, 1987

The most socially subversive institution of our time is the one-parent family.

—Paul Johnson, 1989

Among all nations, through the darkest polytheism glimmer some faint sparks of monotheism.

—Immanuel Kant, 1781

I’ve seen the future, brother; it is murder.

—Leonard Cohen, 1992

Ashore it’s wine, women, and song; aboard it’s rum, bum, and concertina.

—British naval saying, c. 1800

Nature never jests.

—Albrecht von Haller, 1751

Very shy people don’t even want to take up the space that their body actually takes up.

—Andy Warhol, 1975

If you stain clear water with filth, you will never find a drink.

—Aeschylus, 458 BC

Tomorrow we take to the mighty sea.

—Horace, 23 BC

Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands, and goes to work.

—Carl Sandburg, 1959

The seeds of civilization are in every culture, but it is city life that brings them to fruition.

—Susanne K. Langer, 1962