Archive

Quotes

Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.

—Joseph Stalin, 1934

The believer in magic and miracles reflects on how to impose a law on nature—and, in brief, the religious cult is the outcome of this reflection.

—Friedrich Nietzsche, 1878

Possessions, outward success, publicity, luxury—to me these have always been contemptible. I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best both for the body and the mind.

—Albert Einstein, 1931

They are trying to make me into a fixed star. I am an irregular planet.

—Martin Luther, c. 1530

Civilization, as we know it, is a movement and not a condition, a voyage and not a harbor.

—Arnold Toynbee, 1948

To put one’s trust in God is only a longer way of saying that one will chance it.

—Samuel Butler, c. 1890

From the cradle to the coffin, underwear comes first.

—Bertolt Brecht, 1928

One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art.

—Oscar Wilde, 1894

Watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you, because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.

—Roald Dahl, 1990

I shall embrace my rival—until I suffocate him.

—Jean Racine, 1669

A human being must have occupation, if he or she is not to become a nuisance to the world.

—Dorothy L. Sayers, 1947

Nothing so fortifies a friendship as a belief on the part of one friend that he is superior to the other.

—Honoré de Balzac, 1847

A miracle entails a degree of irrationality—not because it shocks reason, but because it makes no appeal to it.

—Emmanuel Lévinas, 1952