To 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, 1957
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Quotes
Show me someone who never gossips, and I’ll show you someone who isn’t interested in people.
—Barbara Walters, 1975The temple bell stops but I still hear the sound coming out of the flowers.
—Basho, c. 1690Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a god.
—Jean Rostand, 1939The fascination of shooting as a sport depends almost wholly on whether you are at the right or wrong end of a gun.
—P.G. Wodehouse, 1929If you have any soul worth expressing, it will show itself in your singing.
—John Ruskin, 1865Liberty and democracy are eternal enemies.
—H.L. Mencken, 1925Slang is as old as speech and the congregating together of people in cities. It is the result of crowding and excitement and artificial life.
—John Camden Hotten, 1859Language is the archives of history.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1844Nature is the art of God.
—Thomas Browne, 1635I cannot but bless the memory of Julius Caesar, for the great esteem he expressed for fat men and his aversion to lean ones.
—David Hume, 1751If I played in New York, they’d name a candy bar after me.
—Reggie Jackson, 1976It’s your business when your neighbor’s wall is in flames.
—Horace, 19 BC