A change of fortune hurts a wise man no more than a change of the moon.
—Benjamin Franklin, 1732
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Quotes
My language is the common prostitute that I turn into a virgin.
—Karl Kraus, c. 1910No man has any natural authority over his fellow man.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1762“Work” does not exist in a nonliterate world. The primitive hunter or fisherman did no work, any more than does the poet, painter, or thinker of today. Where the whole man is involved there is no work.
—Marshall McLuhan, 1964The most fitting occupation for a civilized man is to do nothing.
—Théophile Gautier, c. 1835Whoever gulps down wine as a horse gulps down water is called a Scythian.
—Athenaeus, c. 230A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.
—George Bernard Shaw, 1944The best way to fill time is to waste it.
—Marguerite Duras, 1987The freedom or immunity from coercion in matters religious, which is the endowment of persons as individuals, is also to be recognized as their right when they act in community. Religious communities are a requirement of the social nature both of man and of religion itself.
—Pope Paul VI, 1965In my dreams I sleep with everybody.
—Anaïs Nin, 1933The hatred of relatives is the bitterest.
—Tacitus, 117What water gives, water takes away.
—Portuguese proverbAs I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.
—Abraham Lincoln, c. 1858