We should have a great many fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things themselves.
—John Locke, 1690
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Quotes
There are places one comes home to that one has never been to.
—Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, 1989There must be quite a few things a hot bath won’t cure, but I don’t know many of them.
—Sylvia Plath, 1963I have sometimes thought that the laws ought not to punish those actions of evil which are committed when the senses are steeped in intoxication.
—Walt Whitman, 1842I’ve a grand memory for forgetting.
—Robert Louis Stevenson, 1886Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.
—Joseph Stalin, 1934Lord, I do not ask that thou shouldst give me wealth; only show me where it is, and I will attend to the rest.
—Kate Douglas Wiggin, 1898How gloriously legible are the constellations of the heavens!
—Anthony Trollope, 1859Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real.
—Cormac McCarthy, 1992There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.
—Anthony Trollope, 1862By nature, men are nearly alike; by practice, they get to be wide apart.
—Confucius, c. 500 BCIdolatry is the mother of all games.
—Novatian, c. 255In most cases men willingly believe what they wish.
—Julius Caesar, 52 BC