The first duty of a good inquisitor is to suspect especially those who seem sincere to him.
—Umberto Eco, 1980
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Quotes
Art imitates nature as well as it can, as a pupil follows his master; thus it is a sort of grandchild of God.
—Dante, c. 1315Cities are the abyss of the human species.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1762There are some who, if a cat accidentally comes into the room, though they neither see it nor are told of it, will presently be in a sweat and ready to die away.
—Increase Mather, 1684Traveling is like gambling: it is ever connected with winning and losing, and generally where least expected we receive more or less than we hoped for.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1797The smell of rain is rich with life.
—Estela Portillo Trambley, 1975Why listen to me? I can only predict epidemics and plagues.
—Larry Kramer, 1992Most men employ the first years of their life in making the last miserable.
—Jean de La Bruyère, 1688The only function of a school is to make self-education easier.
—Isaac Asimov, 1974The real problem of humanity is the following: we have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology.
—Edward O. Wilson, 2009If fame is only to come after death, I am in no hurry for it.
—Martial, c. 86The less a man knows about the past and the present, the more insecure must prove to be his judgment of the future.
—Sigmund Freud, 1927I am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.
—George Borrow, 1843