One great reason why many children abandon themselves wholly to silly sports and trifle away all their time insipidly is because they have found their curiosity baulked and their inquiries neglected.
—John Locke, 1693
Archive
Quotes
Nature contains no one constant form.
—Paul-Henri Dietrich d’Holbach, 1770No great idea in its beginning can ever be within the law.
—Emma Goldman, 1917They say that gifts persuade even the gods.
—Euripides, 431 BCThe appointed thing comes at the appointed time in the appointed way.
—Myrtle Reed, 1910The waters are nature’s storehouse, in which she locks up her wonders.
—Izaak Walton, 1653A mind lively and at ease can do with seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not answer.
—Jane Austen, 1815I do not mean to call an elephant a vulgar animal, but if you think about him carefully, you will find that his nonvulgarity consists in such gentleness as is possible to elephantine nature—not in his insensitive hide, nor in his clumsy foot, but in the way he will lift his foot if a child lies in his way; and in his sensitive trunk, and still more sensitive mind, and capability of pique on points of honor.
—John Ruskin, 1860When man wanted to make a machine that would walk, he created the wheel, which does not resemble a leg.
—Guillaume Apollinaire, 1917Machines do not run in order to enable men to live, but we resign ourselves to feeding men in order that they may serve the machines.
—Simone Weil, 1934Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently.
—Rosa Luxemburg, 1918Keep no company with those whose position is high but whose morals are low.
—Ge Hong, c. 320Men who are unhappy, like men who sleep badly, are always proud of the fact.
—Bertrand Russell, 1930