Archive

Quotes

Death from the bubonic plague is rated, with crucifixion, among the nastiest human experiences of all.

—Guy R. Williams, 1975

People will not look forward to posterity who never look backward to their ancestors.

—Edmund Burke, 1790

Water its living strength first shows, / When obstacles its course oppose.

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1815

We should have a great many fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things themselves.

—John Locke, 1690

Pushing someone toward liberty does not set her free; taking the chains off a prisoner does not give him freedom.

—Ken Bugul, 1982

Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

—Ambrose Bierce, 1906

Jesters do oft prove prophets.

—William Shakespeare, c. 1605

While gossip among women is universally ridiculed as low and trivial, gossip among men, especially if it is about women, is called theory, or idea, or fact.

—Andrea Dworkin, 1983

These landscapes of water and reflection have become an obsession.

—Claude Monet, 1908

Thought depends absolutely on the stomach, but in spite of that, those who have the best stomachs are not the best thinkers.

—Voltaire, 1770

I find the pain of a little censure, even when it is unfounded, is more acute than the pleasure of much praise.

—Thomas Jefferson, 1789

In its function, the power to punish is not essentially different from that of curing or educating.

—Michel Foucault, 1975

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

—Thomas Jefferson, 1787