The deed is everything, the glory naught.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1832
Archive
Quotes
Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.
—Joseph Stalin, 1934The Founding Fathers in their wisdom decided that children were an unnatural strain on parents. So they provided jails called schools, equipped with tortures called an education. School is where you go between when your parents can’t take you and industry can’t take you.
—John Updike, 1963If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
—Voltaire, 1764Your piping-hot lie is the best of lies.
—Plautus, c. 200 BCAny sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
—Arthur C. Clarke, 1973Being offended is the natural consequence of leaving one’s home.
—Fran Lebowitz, 1981Moderation in all things.
—Terence, 166 BCGood fortune turns aside destruction by a great god.
—Instructions of Ankhsheshonqy, c. 100 BCWhat a glut of books! Who can read them? As already, we shall have a vast chaos and confusion of books; we are oppressed with them, our eyes ache with reading, our fingers with turning.
—Robert Burton, 1621He who would have clear water should go to the fountainhead.
—Italian proverbI began revolution with eighty-two men. If I had to do it again, I do it with ten or fifteen and absolute faith. It does not matter how small you are if you have faith and plan of action.
—Fidel Castro, 1959
I have learned much from disease which life could never have taught me anywhere else.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1830