The legislator is like the navigator of a ship on the high seas. He can steer the vessel on which he sails, but he cannot alter its construction, raise the wind, or stop the waves from swelling beneath his feet.
—Alexis de Tocqueville, 1835
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Quotes
Home is the girl’s prison and the woman’s workhouse.
—George Bernard Shaw, 1903One of the important requirements for learning how to cook is that you also learn how to eat.
—Julia Child, 2001As he brews, so shall he drink.
—Ben Jonson, 1598Being offended is the natural consequence of leaving one’s home.
—Fran Lebowitz, 1981Is there no way out of the mind?
—Sylvia Plath, 1962At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.
—W. Somerset Maugham, 1896Money, not morality, is the principle of commercial nations.
—Thomas JeffersonThe important thing, I think, is not to be bitter. You know, if it turns out that there is a God, I don’t think that he’s evil. I think that the worst thing you could say about him is that basically he’s an underachiever. After all, you know, there are worse things in life than death.
—Woody Allen, 1975Unexemplary words and unfounded doctrines are avoided by the noble person. Why utter them?
—Dong Zhongshu, c. 120 BCThe breaking of a wave cannot explain the whole sea.
—Vladimir Nabokov, 1941Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs only to the people who prepare for it today.
—Malcolm X, 1964Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
—Marcus Tullius Cicero, 63 BC