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Quotes

See one promontory (said Socrates of old), one mountain, one sea, one river, and see all.

—Robert Burton, c. 1620

Comedy, like sodomy, is an unnatural act.

—Marty Feldman, 1969

The self is like an infant: given free rein, it craves to suckle.

—al-Busiri, c. 1250

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

Friendships begin with liking or gratitude—roots that can be pulled up.

—George Eliot, 1876

Medication alone is not to be relied on. In one half the cases medicine is not needed, or is worse than useless. Obedience to spiritual and physical laws—hygiene of the body and hygiene of the spirit—is the surest warrant for health and happiness.

—Harriot K. Hunt, 1856

Slang 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, 1859

Many are the wonders of the world, and none so wonderful as man.

—Sophocles, c. 441 BC

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.

—Abraham Lincoln, 1861

Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.

—Paul Valéry, 1943

Water is the first principle of everything.

—Thales of Miletus, c. 600 BC

In peace, children inter their parents; war violates the order of nature and causes parents to inter their children.

—Herodotus, 440 BC

I had rather be in a state of misery and envied for my supposed happiness than in a state of happiness and pitied for my supposed misery.

—Elizabeth Inchbald, 1793