On the loftiest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own rump.
—Michel de Montaigne, 1580
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Quotes
How absurd men are! They never use the liberties they have, they demand those they do not have. They have freedom of thought, they demand freedom of speech.
—Søren Kierkegaard, 1843There is nothing that man fears more than the touch of the unknown. He wants to see what is reaching toward him and to be able to recognize or at least classify it. Man always tends to avoid physical contact with anything strange.
—Elias Canetti, 1960Survivors look back and see omens, messages they missed.
—Joan Didion, 2005He who commands the sea has command of everything.
—Francis Bacon, c. 1600Such then is the human state, that to wish greatness for one’s country is to wish harm to one’s neighbors.
—Voltaire, 1764When the stomach is full, it is easy to talk of fasting.
—St. Jerome, 395Punishment is a sort of medicine.
—Aristotle, c. 340 BCBusiness? Why, it’s very simple; business is other people’s money.
—Alexandre Dumas, 1857It is hard when nature does not respect your intentions, and she never does exactly respect them.
—Wendell Berry, 1985What harm is there in getting knowledge and learning, were it from a sot, a pot, a fool, a winter mitten, or an old slipper?
—François Rabelais, 1533My language is the common prostitute that I turn into a virgin.
—Karl Kraus, c. 1910Knowledge itself is power.
—Francis Bacon, 1597