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Quotes

The most advanced nations are always those who navigate the most.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1870

Far water cannot quench near fire.

—Japanese proverb

Why listen to me? I can only predict epidemics and plagues.

—Larry Kramer, 1992

Governments are not overthrown by the poor, who have no power, but by the rich—when they are insulted by their inferiors and cannot obtain justice.

—Dionysius of Halicarnassus, c. 20 BC

A man is not idle, because he is absorbed in thought. There is visible labor and there is an invisible labor.

—Victor Hugo, 1862

Show me someone who never gossips, and I’ll show you someone who isn’t interested in people.

—Barbara Walters, 1975

The man in constant fear is every day condemned.

—Publilius Syrus, c. 50 BC

Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.

—Ambrose Bierce, 1906

It is remarkable that only small birds properly sing.

—Charles Darwin, 1871

Sometime they’ll give a war and nobody will come.

—Carl Sandburg, 1936

That which the sober man keeps in his breast, the drunken man lets out at the lips. Astute people, when they want to ascertain a man’s true character, make him drunk.

—Martin Luther, 1569

He who is afraid of his own memories is cowardly, really cowardly.

—Elias Canetti, 1954

A great step toward independence is a good-humored stomach, one that is willing to endure rough treatment.

—Seneca the Younger, c. 60