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Quotes

Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made—through disobedience and through rebellion.

—Oscar Wilde, 1891

But look, our seas are what we make of them, full of fish or not, opaque or transparent, red or black, high or smooth, narrow or bankless—and we are ourselves sea, sand, coral, seaweed, beaches, tides, swimmers, children, waves.

—Hélène Cixous, 1976

Some writers take to drink, others take to audiences.

—Gore Vidal, 1981

A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

—Martin Luther King Jr., c. 1967

Trade is a social act.

—John Stuart Mill, 1859

They exchange their home and sweet thresholds for exile, and seek under another sun another home.

—Virgil, c. 30 BC

Any serious attempt to do anything worthwhile is ritualistic.

—Derek Walcott, 1986

An oppressed people are authorized, whenever they can, to rise and break their fetters.

—Henry Clay, 1842

When a traveler returneth home, let him not leave the countries where he hath traveled altogether behind him.

—Francis Bacon, 1625

Attacks on me will do no harm, and silent contempt is the best answer to them.

—James Monroe, 1808

How gloriously legible are the constellations of the heavens!

—Anthony Trollope, 1859

Once a woman has lost her chastity she will shrink from nothing.

—Tacitus, c. 100

If you must take care that your opinions do not differ in the least from those of the person with whom you are talking, you might just as well be alone.

—Yoshida Kenko, c. 1330