The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.
—Laozi
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Quotes
The elephant, although a gross beast, is yet the most decent and most sensible of any other upon earth. Although he never changes his female, and hath so tender a love for her whom he hath chosen, yet he never couples with her but at the end of every three years, and then only for the space of five days.
—St. Francis de Sales, 1609The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.
—Charles Darwin, 1871The right to the pursuit of happiness is nothing else than the right to disillusionment phrased in another way.
—Aldous Huxley, 1956The past is always tense and the future, perfect.
—Zadie Smith, 2000Under the wide and starry sky, / Dig the grave and let me lie.
—Robert Louis Stevenson, 1887Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a god.
—Jean Rostand, 1939The gods play games with men as balls.
—Plautus, c. 200 BCEnergy 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, 1970For the merchant, even honesty is a financial speculation.
—Charles Baudelaire, c. 1865I don’t believe in total freedom for the artist. Left on his own, free to do anything he likes, the artist ends up doing nothing at all. If there’s one thing that’s dangerous for an artist, it’s precisely this question of total freedom, waiting for inspiration and all the rest of it.
—Federico Fellini, c. 1950Recreations should be as sauces to your meat, to sharpen your appetite unto the duties of your calling, and not to glut yourselves with them.
—Thomas Gouge, 1672There is only one antidote to mental suffering and that is physical pain.
—Karl Marx, 1860