The people are the foundation of the state. If the foundations are firm, the state will be tranquil.
—Classic of History, c. 400 BC
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Quotes
The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.
—Steve Biko, 1971Trade is a social act.
—John Stuart Mill, 1859There is only one antidote to mental suffering and that is physical pain.
—Karl Marx, 1860No one makes a revolution by himself, and there are some revolutions which humanity accomplishes without quite knowing how, because it is everybody who takes them in hand.
—George Sand, 1851The most hateful torment for men is to have knowledge of everything but power over nothing.
—Herodotus, c. 425 BCWhen action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep.
—Ursula K. Le Guin, 1969When a coward sees a man he can beat, he becomes hungry for a fight.
—Chinua Achebe, 1960An unjust law is no law at all.
—Saint Augustine, 395All civilization has from time to time become a thin crust over a volcano of revolution.
—Havelock Ellis, 1921In settling an island, the first building erected by a Spaniard will be a church, by a Frenchman a fort, by a Dutchman a warehouse, and by an Englishman an alehouse.
—Francis Grose, 1787Bereavement is a darkness impenetrable to the imagination of the unbereaved.
—Iris Murdoch, 1974There is a kind of revolution of so general a character that it changes the mental tastes as well as the fortunes of the world.
—La Rochefoucauld, 1665