Archive

Quotes

No woman needs intercourse; few women escape it.

—Andrea Dworkin, 1978

The real question is not whether machines think but whether men do.

—B.F. Skinner, 1969

I always think of nature as a great spectacle, somewhat resembling the opera.

—Bernard de Fontenelle, 1686

The law makes ten criminals where it restrains one.

—Voltairine de Cleyre, 1890

We want a lot of engineers in the modern world, but we do not want a world of engineers.

—Winston Churchill, 1948

Good fortune turns aside destruction by a great god.

—Instructions of Ankhsheshonqy, c. 100 BC

One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.

—Virginia Woolf, 1929

God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December.

—J.M. Barrie, 1922

Reality is always the foe of famous names.

—Petrarch, 1337

Those who give the first shock to a state are the first overwhelmed in its ruin; the fruits of public commotion are seldom enjoyed by him who was the first mover; he only beats the water for another’s net.

—Michel de Montaigne, 1580

When one has a famishing thirst for happiness, one is apt to gulp down diversions wherever they are offered.

—Alice Hegan Rice, 1917

I drink for the thirst to come.

—François Rabelais, 1535

The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.

—Laozi