Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.
—Samuel Johnson, 1780
Archive
Quotes
Extraordinary how potent cheap music is.
—Noël Coward, 1930The gods play games with men as balls.
—Plautus, c. 200 BCI have loved war too well.
—Louis XIV, 1715Refrigerators and television sets, or even rockets sent to the moon, do not change man into God.
—Czesław Miłosz, 1960Revolutionaries are greater sticklers for formality than conservatives.
—Italo Calvino, 1957Friendships begin with liking or gratitude—roots that can be pulled up.
—George Eliot, 1876Cows are among the gentlest of breathing creatures; none show more passionate tenderness to their young when deprived of them—and, in short, I am not ashamed to profess a deep love for these quiet creatures.
—Thomas De Quincey, 1821The history of the land has been written very largely in water.
—John Hodgdon Bradley Jr., 1935Fate leads the willing and drags along those who hang back.
—Cleanthes, c. 250 BCDemocracy is the fig leaf of elitism.
—Florence King, 1989We must not always talk in the marketplace of what happens to us in the forest.
—Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1850Vox populi, vox humbug.
—William Tecumseh Sherman, 1863