It’s only the futility of the first flood that prevents God from sending a second.
—Sébastien-Roch Nicolas Chamfort, c. 1794
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Quotes
All of the great musicians have borrowed from the songs of the common people.
—Antonín Dvořák, 1893Even diseases have lost their prestige, there aren’t so many of them left.
—Louis-Ferdinand Céline, 1960Go to the pine if you want to learn about the pine, or to the bamboo if you want to learn about the bamboo.
—Matsuo Basho, c. 1685Medication alone is not to be relied on. In one half the cases medicine is not needed, or is worse than useless. Obedience to spiritual and physical laws—hygiene of the body and hygiene of the spirit—is the surest warrant for health and happiness.
—Harriot K. Hunt, 1856All attempts to adapt our ethical code to our situation in the technological age have failed.
—Max Born, 1968How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do.
—William James, 1902The best physician is he who can distinguish the possible from the impossible.
—Herophilus, c. 290 BCI have loved war too well.
—Louis XIV, 1715No man has any natural authority over his fellow man.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1762If 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, 1894The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honor or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1774Journalists belong in the gutter, because that is where the ruling classes throw their guilty secrets.
—Gerald Priestland, 1988