Man is no man, but a wolf, to a stranger.
—Plautus, c. 200 BC
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Quotes
It is not right for a ruler who has the nation in his charge, a man with so much on his mind, to sleep all night.
—Homer, c. 750 BCIf I lose at play, I blaspheme, and if my fellow loses, he blasphemes. So that God is always sure to be the loser.
—John Donne, 1623When night in her rusty dungeon has imprisoned our eyesight, and that we are shut separately in our chambers from resort, the devil keeps his audit in our sin-guilty consciences.
—Thomas Nashe, 1594Seamen are the nearest to death and the furthest from God.
—Thomas Fuller, 1732“I think, therefore I am” is the statement of an intellectual who underrates toothaches.
—Milan Kundera, 1990It is impossible to translate the poets. Can you translate music?
—Voltaire, c. 1732Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.
—Jeremy Bentham, c. 1832If we do not maintain justice, justice will not maintain us.
—Francis Bacon, 1615It hurts to watch the fluency of a body acclimated to its shackling.
—Leslie Jamison, 2014If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
—Mark Twain, 1894Do not ask me to be kind; just ask me to act as though I were.
—Jules Renard, 1898Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1921