Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a god.
—Jean Rostand, 1939
Archive
Quotes
I am a friend of the workingman, and I would rather be his friend than be one.
—Clarence Darrow, 1932The U.S. presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones.
—Anthony Burgess, 1972Everybody says it; and what everybody says must be true.
—James Fenimore Cooper, 1844It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.
—Dolores Ibárruri, 1936Whatever the apparent cause of any riots may be, the real one is always want of happiness.
—Thomas Paine, 1792Just as language no longer has anything in common with the thing it names, so the movements of most of the people who live in cities have lost their connection with the earth; they hang, as it were, in the air, hover in all directions, and find no place where they can settle.
—Rainer Maria Rilke, 1903The physician should look upon the patient as a besieged city and try to rescue him with every means that art and science place at his command.
—Alexander of Tralles, c. 600A passion for horses, players, and gladiators seems to be the epidemic folly of the times. The child receives it in his mother’s womb; he brings it with him into the world, and in a mind so possessed, what room for science, or any generous purpose?
—Tacitus, c. 100He that serves God for money will serve the Devil for better wages.
—Roger L’Estrange, 1692Reminiscences make one feel so deliciously aged and sad.
—George Bernard Shaw, 1886It would seem that in history it’s never a tooth for a tooth, but a thousand, a hundred thousand for one.
—Sybille Bedford, 1963I’d like to be a machine, wouldn’t you?
—Andy Warhol, 1963