In times of pestilence, gaiety and joyousness are most profitable.
—Jacme d’Agramont, 1348
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Quotes
Why has the government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.
—Alexander Hamilton, 1787Be temperate in wine, in eating, girls, and sloth, or the Gout will seize you.
—Benjamin Franklin, 1734Where it is a duty to worship the sun, it is pretty sure to be a crime to examine the laws of heat.
—John Morley, 1872To place oneself in the position of God is painful: being God is equivalent to being tortured. For being God means that one is in harmony with all that is, including the worst. The existence of the worst evils is unimaginable unless God willed them.
—Georges Bataille, 1957People living deeply have no fear of death.
—Anaïs Nin, 1935The vice presidency isn’t worth a pitcher of warm piss.
—John Nance Garner, c. 1967He laughs best who laughs last.
—French proverbI was born at a very early age. Before I had time to regret it, I was four and a half years old.
—Groucho Marx, 1959Does anybody really want to attend to cities other than to flee, fleece, privatize, butcher, or decimate them?
—Jane Holtz Kay, 1992Give us the luxuries of life, and we will dispense with the necessities.
—John Lothrop Motley, 1858The mind is not, I know, a highway but a temple, and its doors should not be carelessly left open.
—Margaret Fuller, 1844Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live.
—Socrates, c. 430 BC