Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.
—Reinhold Niebuhr, 1944
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Quotes
Family! Thou art the home of all social evil, a charitable institution for comfortable women, an anchorage for house-fathers, and a hell for children.
—August Strindberg, 1886A real leader is somebody who can help us overcome the limitations of our own individual laziness and selfishness and weakness and fear and get us to do better, harder things than we can get ourselves to do on our own.
—David Foster Wallace, 2000Give me chastity and continence, but not just now.
—Saint Augustine, 397I am dying with the help of too many physicians.
—Alexander the Great, c. 323 BCThe gods play games with men as balls.
—Plautus, c. 200 BCHonesty, for me, is usually the worst policy imaginable.
—Patricia Highsmith, 1960I hate the sight of monkeys; they remind me so of poor relations.
—Henry Luttrell, 1820If I lose at play, I blaspheme, and if my fellow loses, he blasphemes. So that God is always sure to be the loser.
—John Donne, 1623Money, not morality, is the principle of commercial nations.
—Thomas JeffersonA machine is a slave that neither brings nor bears degradation.
—Benjamin Disraeli, 1844God is a complex of ideas formed by the tribe, the nation, and humanity, which awake and organize social feelings and aim to link the individual to society and to bridle the zoological individualism.
—Maxim Gorky, 1913Charity is murder and you know it.
—Dorothy Parker, 1956