Fear is a poor guarantor of a long life.
—Marcus Tullius Cicero, 44
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Quotes
Oh, democracy! Whither are you leading us?
—Aristophanes, 414 BCSlang is as old as speech and the congregating together of people in cities. It is the result of crowding and excitement and artificial life.
—John Camden Hotten, 1859My language is the common prostitute that I turn into a virgin.
—Karl Kraus, c. 1910I imagine that one of the first forms of behavior, like one of the first signals, may be reduced to this: “Keep me warm.”
—Michel Serres, 1982If it were not for the intellectual snobs who pay in solid cash—the tribute which philistinism owes to culture, the arts would perish with their starving practitioners. Let us thank heaven for hypocrisy.
—Aldous Huxley, 1926Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.
—Herman Melville, 1851Hatred of domestic work is a natural and admirable result of civilization.
—Rebecca West, 1912I have always found it in mine own experience an easier matter to devise many and profitable inventions than to dispose of one of them to the good of the author himself.
—Hugh Plat, 1595Man is a tool-using animal. Nowhere do you find him without tools; without tools he is nothing, with tools he is all.
—Thomas Carlyle, 1836Without doubt God is the universal moving force, but each being is moved according to the nature that God has given it. He directs angels, man, animals, brute matter, in sum all created things—but each according to its nature—and man having been created free, he is freely led. This rule is truly the eternal law and in it we must believe.
—Joseph de Maistre, 1821Moderation in all things.
—Terence, 166 BCThe thing that impresses me most about America is the way parents obey their children.
—Edward, Duke of Windsor, 1957