These useless men ought to be cut up and served at a banquet. I really believe that athletes have less intelligence than swine.
—Dio Chrysostom, c. 95
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Quotes
There is a time to battle against nature, and a time to obey her. True wisdom lies in making the right choice.
—Arthur C. Clarke, 1979Thanks be to God: since my leaving drinking of wine, I do find myself much better and do mind my business better, and do spend less money, and less time lost in idle company.
—Samuel Pepys, 1662The Church says that the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in the shadow than in the Church.
—Ferdinand Magellan, c. 1510My interest is in the future, because I am going to spend the rest of my life there.
—Charles F. Kettering, 1946Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea? How did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea.
—Sydney Smith, 1855Friends are fictions founded on some single momentary experience.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1864Strength of mind is exercise, not rest.
—Alexander Pope, 1733Had Cleopatra’s nose been shorter, the whole face of the world would have changed.
—Blaise Pascal, 1658Secrets define us, they mark us, they set us apart from all the others. The secrets which we preserve provide a key to who we are, deep down.
—Nuruddin Farah, 1998This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.
—Abraham Lincoln, 1861Democracy produces both heroes and villains, but it differs from a fascist state in that it does not produce a hero who is a villain.
—Margaret Halsey, 1946To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life.
—Walter Pater, 1873