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
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Quotes
Nature is often hidden, sometimes overcome, seldom extinguished.
—Francis Bacon, 1625There must be quite a few things a hot bath won’t cure, but I don’t know many of them.
—Sylvia Plath, 1963Art transcends its limitations only by staying within them.
—Flannery O’Connor, 1964The more sifted, the finer the flour; the more often repeated, the rougher the gossip.
—Korean proverbAll of life is a foreign country.
—Jack Kerouac, 1949I cannot live without books, but fewer will suffice where amusement, and not use, is the only future object.
—Thomas Jefferson, 1815Despotism subjects a nation to one tyrant—democracy to many.
—Marguerite Gardiner, 1839I imagined it was more difficult to die.
—Louis XIV, 1715To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the need for thought.
—Henri Poincaré, 1903We need strength, we need energy, we need quickness, and we need brain in this country to turn it around.
—Donald Trump, 2015It is He who has subdued the ocean so that you may eat of its fresh fish and bring up from its depth ornaments to wear. Behold the ships plowing their course through it. All this, that you may seek His bounty and render thanks.
—The Qur’an, c. 625What 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, 1621