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Quotes

Every country has the government it deserves.

—Joseph de Maistre, 1811

Reading is learning, but applying is also learning and the more important kind of learning at that.

—Mao Zedong, 1936

The more enlightened our houses are, the more their walls ooze ghosts.

—Italo Calvino, 1967

Commerce tends to wear off those prejudices which maintain distinction and animosity between nations.

—William Robertson, 1769

He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.

—Francis Bacon, 1625

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

—Thomas Jefferson, 1787

The strength of a family, like the strength of an army, is in its loyalty to each other.

—Mario Puzo, 2001

The law is established from above but becomes custom below.

—Su Zhe, c. 1100

Unfortunately, humanitarianism has been the mark of an inhuman time.

—G.K. Chesterton, 1932

Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses: they last while they last.

—Charles de Gaulle, 1963

Nothing 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

He that commands the sea is at great liberty and may take as much and as little of the war as he will.

—Francis Bacon, c. 1600

Ah! Freedom is a noble thing!

—John Barbour, 1375