Archive

Quotes

Every gift has a personality—that of its giver.

—Nuruddin Farah, 1992

The peasants alone are revolutionary, for they have nothing to lose and everything to gain. The starving peasant, outside the class system, is the first among the exploited to discover that only violence pays. For him there is no compromise, no possible coming to terms. 

—Frantz Fanon, 1961

Reading is learning, but applying is also learning and the more important kind of learning at that.

—Mao Zedong, 1936

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.

—John F. Kennedy, 1962

All that we know is nothing can be known. 

—Lord Byron, 1812

The more religious a country is, the more crimes are committed in it.

—Napoleon Bonaparte, 1817

Memory is the only
afterlife I can understand.

—Lisel Mueller, 1996

Necessity knows no law except to conquer.

—Publilius Syrus, c. 50 BC

I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigrees of nations.

—Samuel Johnson, 1773

Men are generally more pleased with a widespread than with a great reputation.

—Pliny the Younger, c. 110

All God’s children are not beautiful. Most of God’s children are, in fact, barely presentable.

—Fran Lebowitz, 1978

The future comes like an unwelcome guest.

—Edmund Gosse, 1873

It is hell to belong to a suppressed minority.

—Claude McKay, 1937