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Quotes

There is a sickness among tyrants: they cannot trust their friends.

—Aeschylus, c. 458 BC

If the human race wants to go to hell in a basket, technology can help it get there by jet.

—Charles M. Allen, 1967

Quarrels would not last long if the fault was only on one side.

—La Rochefoucauld, 1665

Don’t ever wear artistic jewelry; it wrecks a woman’s reputation.

—Colette, 1944

The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.

—Aristotle, c. 350 BC

Jests and scoffs do lessen majesty and greatness and should be far from great personages and men of wisdom.

—Henry Peacham, 1622

A person who sees only fashion in fashion is a fool.

—Honoré de Balzac, 1830

Far water cannot quench near fire.

—Japanese proverb

I do not mean to call an elephant a vulgar animal, but if you think about him carefully, you will find that his nonvulgarity consists in such gentleness as is possible to elephantine nature—not in his insensitive hide, nor in his clumsy foot, but in the way he will lift his foot if a child lies in his way; and in his sensitive trunk, and still more sensitive mind, and capability of pique on points of honor.

—John Ruskin, 1860

Lord, I do not ask that thou shouldst give me wealth; only show me where it is, and I will attend to the rest.

—Kate Douglas Wiggin, 1898

As natural selection works solely by and for the good of each being, all corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress toward perfection.

—Charles Darwin, 1859

What man was ever content with one crime?

—Juvenal, c. 125

There ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.

—Mark Twain, 1894