A change of fortune hurts a wise man no more than a change of the moon.
—Benjamin Franklin, 1732
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Quotes
The best physician is he who can distinguish the possible from the impossible.
—Herophilus, c. 290 BCSecrets define us, they mark us, they set us apart from all the others. The secrets which we preserve provide a key to who we are, deep down.
—Nuruddin Farah, 1998Man is a tool-using animal. Nowhere do you find him without tools; without tools he is nothing, with tools he is all.
—Thomas Carlyle, 1836Friendship! Sir, there can be no such thing without an equality.
—George Farquhar, 1702I said of laughter, “It is mad,” and of pleasure, “What use is it?”
—Book of Ecclesiastes, 225 BCGive us this day our television, and an automobile, but deliver us from freedom.
—Jean-Luc Godard, 1966Democracy produces both heroes and villains, but it differs from a fascist state in that it does not produce a hero who is a villain.
—Margaret Halsey, 1946How 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, 1843Let us leave this Europe which never stops talking of Man yet massacres him at every one of its street corners, at every corner of the world.
—Frantz Fanon, 1961Rebellion is no less a sin than divination.
—Book of Samuel, c. 550 BCWhen man wanted to make a machine that would walk, he created the wheel, which does not resemble a leg.
—Guillaume Apollinaire, 1917Ridicule often checks what is absurd, and fully as often smothers that which is noble.
—Walter Scott, 1823