Archive

Quotes

The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways—I to die, and you to live. Which is better, only the god knows.

—Socrates, 399 BC

It is men who make a city, not walls or ships.

—Thucydides, 410 BC

The subconscious is ceaselessly murmuring, and it is by listening to these murmurs that one hears the truth.

—Gaston Bachelard, 1960

Revolution begins in putting on bright colors.

—Tennessee Williams, 1944

When nature is overriden, she takes her revenge.

—Marya Mannes, 1958

Never make a defense or apology before you be accused.

—Charles I, 1636

They say, “We only have the life of this world. We die and we live, and nothing destroys us but time.” Yet, not true knowledge have they of this—only belief.

—The Qur’an, c. 620

If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great streetsweeper that did his job well.

—Martin Luther King Jr., 1954

No law is sufficiently convenient to all.

—Roman proverb

A good dog, sir, deserves a good bone.

—Ben Jonson, 1633

It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.

—Dolores Ibárruri, 1936

No one wins a quarrel by quarreling.

—German proverb

Everything that deceives does so by casting a spell.

—Plato, c. 375 BC