Go to the pine if you want to learn about the pine, or to the bamboo if you want to learn about the bamboo.
—Matsuo Basho, c. 1685
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Quotes
Be not the slave of your own past. Plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep, and swim far, so shall you come back with self-respect, with new power, with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1838Plough deep while sluggards sleep.
—Benjamin Franklin, 1758We possess art lest we perish of the truth.
—Friedrich Nietzsche, 1887Epitaph, n. An inscription on a tomb, showing that virtues acquired by death have a retroactive effect.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1906All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.
—Toni Morrison, 1987Home is the girl’s prison and the woman’s workhouse.
—George Bernard Shaw, 1903Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live.
—Socrates, c. 430 BCWar has silenced all laws.
—Lucan, c. 65It’s your business when your neighbor’s wall is in flames.
—Horace, 19 BCWhat one man can invent another can discover.
—Arthur Conan Doyle, 1905Speak without regard for the consequences, and it is too late for silence when disaster strikes.
—Huan Kuan, 81 BCPolitical power grows out of the barrel of a gun.
—Mao Zedong, 1938