Luck takes the step that no one sees.
—Publilius Syrus, c. 50 BC
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Quotes
If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins to them.
—Francis Bacon, 1625Today’s friend may be tomorrow’s foe.
—Sophocles, 440 BCThe only justification of rebellion is success.
—Thomas B. Reed, 1878Energy is the power that drives every human being. It is not lost by exertion but maintained by it, for it is a faculty of the psyche.
—Germaine Greer, 1970The most dangerous madmen are those created by religion, and people whose aim is to disrupt society always know how to make good use of them.
—Denis Diderot, 1777If we do not maintain justice, justice will not maintain us.
—Francis Bacon, 1615Whatever the apparent cause of any riots may be, the real one is always want of happiness.
—Thomas Paine, 1792Every creature in the world is like a book and a picture, to us, and a mirror.
—Alain de Lille, c. 1200In our family, as far as we are concerned, we were born and what happened before that is myth.
—V.S. Pritchett, 1968Imagine a number of men in chains, all under sentence of death, some of whom are each day butchered in the sight of the others; those remaining see their own condition in that of their fellows and, looking at each other with grief and despair, await their turn. This is an image of the human condition.
—Blaise Pascal, 1669They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.
—Francis Bacon, 1605Fear has a smell, as love does.
—Margaret Atwood, 1972