Never make a defense or apology before you be accused.
—Charles I, 1636
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Quotes
If the people be the governors, who shall be governed?
—John Cotton, c. 1636Everybody says it; and what everybody says must be true.
—James Fenimore Cooper, 1844An honest man is all right even if he’s an idiot…but a crook must have brains.
—Maxim Gorky, 1902What keeps the democracy alive at all but the hatred of excellence, the desire of the base to see no head higher than their own?
—Mary Renault, 1956Unexemplary words and unfounded doctrines are avoided by the noble person. Why utter them?
—Dong Zhongshu, c. 120 BCThey say, “We only have the life of this world. We die and we live, and nothing destroys us but time.” Yet, not true knowledge have they of this—only belief.
—The Qur’an, c. 620A functioning police state needs no police.
—William S. Burroughs, 1959It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.
—Frederick Douglass, 1852We often give our enemies the means for our own destruction.
—Aesop, c. 600 BCAll of life is a foreign country.
—Jack Kerouac, 1949The unknown is the largest need of the intellect.
—Emily Dickinson, 1876Secrecy lies at the very core of power.
—Elias Canetti, 1960