A passion for horses, players, and gladiators seems to be the epidemic folly of the times. The child receives it in his mother’s womb; he brings it with him into the world, and in a mind so possessed, what room for science, or any generous purpose?
—Tacitus, c. 100
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Quotes
Nothing is so much to be shunned as sex relations.
—Saint Augustine, c. 387Hygienic law, like martial law, supersedes rights in crises.
—Samuel Hopkins Adams, 1913Brain, n. An apparatus with which we think that we think.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1906It was funny how I could feel all alone and under surveillance at the same time.
—Cory Doctorow, 2013Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered.
—William Shakespeare, c. 1610When action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep.
—Ursula K. Le Guin, 1969As usual, what we call “progress” is the exchange of one nuisance for another nuisance.
—Havelock Ellis, 1914All men naturally hate each other. We have used concupiscence as best we can to make it serve the common good, but this is mere sham and a false image of charity, for essentially it is just hate.
—Blaise Pascal, c. 1655I have yet, I believe, some years in store, for I have a good state of health and a happy mind, and I take care of both by nourishing the first with temperance and the latter with abundance. This, I believe, you will allow to be the true philosophy of life.
—Thomas Paine, 1803Without music life would be a mistake.
—Friedrich Nietzsche, 1889To 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, 1957Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth but not its twin.
—Barbara Kingsolver, 1990