Death from the bubonic plague is rated, with crucifixion, among the nastiest human experiences of all.
—Guy R. Williams, 1975
Archive
Quotes
Once you hear the details of a victory it is hard to distinguish it from a defeat.
—Jean-Paul Sartre, 1951Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.
—Herman Melville, 1851I am leaving the town to the invaders: increasingly numerous, mediocre, dirty, badly behaved, shameless tourists.
—Brigitte Bardot, 1989The best way to fill time is to waste it.
—Marguerite Duras, 1987Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
—Marcus Tullius Cicero, 63 BCTrade is a social act.
—John Stuart Mill, 1859The drunken man is a living corpse.
—St. John Chrysostom, c. 390No punishment has ever possessed enough power of deterrence to prevent the commission of crimes.
—Hannah Arendt, 1963Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.
—Jane Austen, 1818There is something stirring in the way civilization gapes like a savage at the achievements of nature.
—Karl Kraus, 1909For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?
—Jane Austen, 1813There never is absolute birth nor complete death, in the strict sense, consisting in the separation of the soul from the body. What we call births are developments and growths, while what we call deaths are envelopments and diminutions.
—Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, 1714