The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.
—Laozi
Archive
Quotes
With the dead there is no rivalry.
—Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1839Imagination is the secret and marrow of civilization. It is the very eye of faith.
—Henry Ward Beecher, 1887Honest commerce is the great civilizer. We exchange ideas when we exchange fabrics.
—Robert G. Ingersoll, 1882An electoral choice of ten different fascists is like choosing which way one wishes to die.
—George Jackson, 1971It’s your business when your neighbor’s wall is in flames.
—Horace, 19 BCLo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.
—Ecclesiastes, c. 250 BCOne may like the love and despise the lover.
—George Farquhar, 1706The 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, 1961Africa has her mysteries, and even a wise man cannot understand them. But a wise man respects them.
—Miriam Makeba, 1988Anyone who’s never experienced the pleasure of betrayal doesn’t know what pleasure is.
—Jean Genet, 1986I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. War is hell.
—William Tecumseh Sherman, 1879Man has here two and a half minutes—one to smile, one to sigh, and half a one to love; for in the midst of this minute he dies.
—Jean Paul, 1795