Nothing from nothing ever yet was born.
—Lucretius, c. 58 BC
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Quotes
The day unravels what the night has woven.
—Walter Benjamin, 1929They are trying to make me into a fixed star. I am an irregular planet.
—Martin Luther, c. 1530Guard more faithfully the secret which is confided to you than the money which is entrusted to your care.
—Isocrates, c. 370 BCIf both what is before and what is after are in this same “now,” things which happened ten thousand years ago would be simultaneous with what has happened today, and nothing would be before or after anything else.
—Aristotle, c. 330 BCNo great idea in its beginning can ever be within the law.
—Emma Goldman, 1917Animals have these advantages over man: they never hear the clock strike, they die without any idea of death, they have no theologians to instruct them, their last moments are not disturbed by unwelcome and unpleasant ceremonies, their funerals cost them nothing, and no one starts lawsuits over their wills.
—Voltaire, 1769Night affords the most convenient shade for works of darkness.
—John Taylor, 1750Some folks want their luck buttered.
—Thomas Hardy, 1886Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
—George Washington, 1796Most men employ the first years of their life in making the last miserable.
—Jean de La Bruyère, 1688How sweet it is to have people point and say, “There he is.”
—Persius, c. 60The more laws, the more lawbreakers.
—Tao Te Ching, c. 500 BC