All things are filled full of signs, and it is a wise man who can learn about one thing from another.
—Plotinus, c. 255
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Quotes
Nobody, sir, dies willingly.
—Antiphanes, c. 370 BCSome to the common pulpits, and cry out / “Liberty, freedom, and enfranchisement!”
—William Shakespeare, c. 1599Man’s great mission is not to conquer nature by main force but to cooperate with her intelligently but lovingly for his own purposes.
—Lewis Mumford, 1962If we wait for a pandemic to appear, it will be too late to prepare.
—George W. Bush, 2005Exchange is no robbery.
—German proverbThe bathing was so delightful this morning, and Molly so pressing with me to enjoy myself, that I believe I stayed in rather too long, as since the middle of the day I have felt unreasonably tired. I shall be more careful another time, and shall not bathe tomorrow as I had before intended.
—Jane Austen, 1804Carnal embrace is the practice of throwing one’s arms around a side of beef.
—Tom Stoppard, 1993The future is no more uncertain than the present.
—Walt Whitman, 1856A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast.
—The BibleMy mother protected me from the world and my father threatened me with it.
—Quentin Crisp, 1968The almost insoluble task is to let neither the power of others, nor our own powerlessness, stupefy us.
—Theodor Adorno, 1951I began to realize how simple life could be if one had a regular routine to follow with fixed hours, a fixed salary, and very little original thinking to do.
—Roald Dahl, 1984