Archive

Quotes

It is far, far better and much safer to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled seas of thought.

—John Kenneth Galbraith, 1958

Fear is a poor guarantor of a long life.

—Marcus Tullius Cicero, 44

Labor disgraces no man; unfortunately, you occasionally find men who disgrace labor.

—Ulysses S. Grant, 1877

The diseases of the present have little in common with the diseases of the past save that we die of them.

—Agnes Repplier, 1929

The law looks at no one’s face.

—Gabriel Okara, 1964

Law makes long spokes of the short stakes of men.

—William Empson, 1928

Madness need not be all breakdown. It may also be breakthrough.

—R.D. Laing, 1967

The U.S. presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones.

—Anthony Burgess, 1972

Under all speech that is good for anything, there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as eternity; speech is shallow as time.

—Thomas Carlyle, 1838

An unjust law is no law at all.

—Saint Augustine, 395

The passion for setting people right is in itself an afflictive disease.

—Marianne Moore, 1935

Life is the art of being well deceived.

—William Hazlitt, c. 1817

Idolatry is the mother of all games.

—Novatian, c. 255