The more the pleasures of the body fade away, the greater to me is the pleasure and charm of conversation.
—Plato, c. 375 BC
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Quotes
You cannot endow even the best machine with initiative; the jolliest steamroller will not plant flowers.
—Walter Lippmann, 1913There are times when reality becomes too complex for oral communication. But legend gives it a form by which it pervades the whole world.
—Jean-Luc Godard, 1965Men worry over the great number of diseases, while doctors worry over the scarcity of effective remedies.
—Bian Qiao, c. 500 BCInfectious disease is one of the few genuine adventures left in the world.
—Hans Zinsser, 1935O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes.
—William Shakespeare, c. 1599Your body is the church where nature asks to be reverenced.
—Marquis de Sade, 1797We don’t have the option of turning away from the future. No one gets to vote on whether technology is going to change our lives.
—Bill Gates, 1995Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
—Arthur C. Clarke, 1973An ugly sight, a man who’s afraid.
—Jean Anouilh, 1944He who sings frightens away his ills.
—Miguel de Cervantes, 1605If not us, who? If not now, when?
—Czech slogan, 1989As to the sea itself, love it you cannot. Why should you? I will never believe again the sea was ever loved by anyone whose life was married to it. It is the creation of omnipotence, which is not of humankind and understandable, and so the springs of its behavior are hidden.
—H.M. Tomlinson, 1912