Archive

Quotes

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

—Mao Zedong, 1938

In life our absent friend is far away: / But death may bring our friend exceeding near.

—Christina Rossetti, 1881

No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.

—Samuel Johnson, 1776

Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.

—Benjamin Franklin, 1735

Before the earth could become an industrial garbage can, it had first to become a research laboratory.

—Theodore Roszak, 1972

Motherhood is the strangest thing, it can be like being one’s own Trojan horse.

—Rebecca West, 1959

The fox knows lots of tricks, the hedgehog only one—but it’s a winner.

—Archilochus, c. 650 BC

The law is established from above but becomes custom below.

—Su Zhe, c. 1100

There is a city in which you find everything you desire—handsome people, pleasures, ornaments of every kind—all that the natural person craves. However, you cannot find a single wise person there.

—Rumi, c. 1250

No man ever distinguished himself who could not bear to be laughed at.

—Maria Edgeworth, 1809

It’s only the futility of the first flood that prevents God from sending a second.

—Sébastien-Roch Nicolas Chamfort, c. 1794

The only places where American medicine can fully live up to its possibilities are the teaching hospitals.

—Bernard De Voto, 1951

Happiness does not dwell in herds, nor yet in gold.

—Democritus, c. 420 BC