The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure it is right.
—Judge Learned Hand, 1944
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Quotes
A watch is always too fast or too slow. I cannot be dictated to by a watch.
—Jane Austen, 1814Hoping for new friendship from old enemies is / Like expecting to find a rose in a furnace.
—Muhammad Baqir Najm-i Sani, 1612Guard more faithfully the secret which is confided to you than the money which is entrusted to your care.
—Isocrates, c. 370 BCIt was funny how I could feel all alone and under surveillance at the same time.
—Cory Doctorow, 2013To 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, 1957Such then is the human state, that to wish greatness for one’s country is to wish harm to one’s neighbors.
—Voltaire, 1764Seafarers go to sleep in the evening not knowing whether they will find themselves at the bottom of the sea the next morning.
—Jean de Joinville, c. 1305A fair complexion is unbecoming to a sailor: he ought to be swarthy from the waters of the sea and the rays of the sun.
—Ovid, c. 1 BCThe first requisite to happiness is that a man be born in a famous city.
—Euripides, c. 415 BCOur allotted time is the passing of a shadow.
—Book of Wisdom, c. 100 BCIt is a greater advantage to be honestly educated than honorably born.
—Erasmus, 1518I 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