Archive

Quotes

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

—Mao Zedong, 1938

Most men employ the first years of their life in making the last miserable.

—Jean de La Bruyère, 1688

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

—Italo Calvino, 1967

Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.

—Oscar Wilde, 1891

A man is either free or he is not. There cannot be any apprenticeship for freedom.

—Amiri Baraka, 1962

As man disappears from sight, the land remains.

—Maori proverb

The only justification of rebellion is success.

—Thomas B. Reed, 1878

If I see something sagging, dragging, or bagging, I’m going to go have the stuff tucked or plucked.

—Dolly Parton, 2003

What does education often do? It makes a straight-cut ditch of a free, meandering brook.

—Henry David Thoreau, 1850

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.

—George Bernard Shaw, 1944

In tampering with the earth, we tamper with a mystery.

—Jonathan Schell, 2000

Without a decisive naval force, we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious.

—George Washington, 1781

I have often repented speaking, but never of holding my tongue.

—Xenocrates, c. 350 BC