The more corrupt the state, the more numerous its laws.
—Tacitus, c. 110
Archive
Quotes
In times of pestilence, gaiety and joyousness are most profitable.
—Jacme d’Agramont, 1348Our crime against criminals is that we treat them as villains.
—Friedrich Nietzsche, 1898When one has a famishing thirst for happiness, one is apt to gulp down diversions wherever they are offered.
—Alice Hegan Rice, 1917’Tis a portentous sign / When a man sweats and at the same time shivers.
—Plautus, c. 180 BCAll moanday, tearsday, wailsday, thumpsday, frightday, shatterday till the fear of the Law.
—James Joyce, 1939The first duty of a good inquisitor is to suspect especially those who seem sincere to him.
—Umberto Eco, 1980From hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee.
—Herman Melville, 1851Animals hear about death for the first time when they die.
—Arthur Schopenhauer, 1819Do you suppose that will change the sense of the morals, the fact that we can’t use morals as a means of judging the city because we couldn’t stand it? And that we’re changing our whole moral system to suit the fact that we’re living in a ridiculous way?
—Philip Johnson, 1965Language is the archives of history.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1844The law makes ten criminals where it restrains one.
—Voltairine de Cleyre, 1890I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1928