I work for a government I despise for ends I think criminal.
—John Maynard Keynes, 1917
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Quotes
What 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, 1956Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.
—William Blake, c. 1790I am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.
—George Borrow, 1843The law is far, the fist is near.
—Korean proverbThe great difficulty lies in trying to transpose last night’s moment to a day which has no knowledge of it.
—Zora Neale Hurston, 1942Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need—a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing.
—Jerome K. Jerome, 1889Education has become a prisoner of contemporaneity. It is the past, not the dizzy present, that is the best door to the future.
—Camille Paglia, 1992Money speaks sense in a language all nations understand.
—Aphra Behn, 1677At the bottom of enmity between strangers lies indifference.
—Søren Kierkegaard, 1850’Tis the sport to have the engineer / Hoist with his own petard.
—William Shakespeare, c. 1600The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.
—Dean Acheson, 1970The 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