The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
—H.L. Mencken, 1921
Archive
Quotes
From the cradle to the coffin, underwear comes first.
—Bertolt Brecht, 1928When we define democracy now, it must still be as a thing hoped for but not seen.
—Pearl S. Buck, 1941Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made—through disobedience and through rebellion.
—Oscar Wilde, 1891Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.
—Benjamin Franklin, 1776The gift of a common tongue is a priceless inheritance and it may well some day become the foundation of a common citizenship.
—Winston Churchill, 1943On the loftiest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own rump.
—Michel de Montaigne, 1580The more the pleasures of the body fade away, the greater to me is the pleasure and charm of conversation.
—Plato, c. 375 BCYears are nothing to me—they should be nothing to you. Who asked you to count them or to consider them? In the world of wild nature, time is measured by seasons only—the bird does not know how old it is—the rose tree does not count its birthdays!
—Marie Corelli, 1911There is no foreign land; it is the traveler only that is foreign.
—Robert Louis Stevenson, 1883A woman should never be seen eating or drinking unless it be lobster salad and champagne, the only truly feminine and becoming viands.
—Lord Byron, 1812The march of the human mind is slow.
—Edmund Burke, 1775Reading is learning, but applying is also learning and the more important kind of learning at that.
—Mao Zedong, 1936