When we define democracy now, it must still be as a thing hoped for but not seen.
—Pearl S. Buck, 1941
Archive
Quotes
The period of a [Persian] boy’s education is between the ages of five and twenty, and he is taught three things only: to ride, to use the bow, and to speak the truth.
—Herodotus, c. 440 BCJournalists belong in the gutter, because that is where the ruling classes throw their guilty secrets.
—Gerald Priestland, 1988The mind is not, I know, a highway but a temple, and its doors should not be carelessly left open.
—Margaret Fuller, 1844Youth is the time to go flashing from one end of the world to the other both in mind and body, to try the manners of different nations, to hear the chimes at midnight.
—Robert Louis Stevenson, 1881Whoever gulps down wine as a horse gulps down water is called a Scythian.
—Athenaeus, c. 230You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.
—Mario Cuomo, 1985All technologies should be assumed guilty until proven innocent.
—David Brower, 1992The self is like an infant: given free rein, it craves to suckle.
—al-Busiri, c. 1250In psychoanalysis nothing is true except the exaggerations.
—Theodor Adorno, 1951If you were to ask me if I’d ever had the bad luck to miss my daily cocktail, I’d have to say that I doubt it; where certain things are concerned, I plan ahead.
—Luis Buñuel, 1983Being offended is the natural consequence of leaving one’s home.
—Fran Lebowitz, 1981Among famous traitors of history, one might mention the weather.
—Ilka Chase, 1969