Is this dying? Is this all? Is this all that I feared when I prayed against a hard death? Oh, I can bear this! I can bear it!
—Cotton Mather, 1728
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Quotes
Envy is the basis of democracy.
—Bertrand Russell, 1930A god cannot procure death for himself, even if he wished it, which, so numerous are the evils of life, has been granted to man as our chief good.
—Pliny the Elder, c. 77As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.
—Pope John Paul II, 1986Man is a troublesome animal and therefore is not very manageable.
—Plato, c. 349 BCRecreations should be as sauces to your meat, to sharpen your appetite unto the duties of your calling, and not to glut yourselves with them.
—Thomas Gouge, 1672The earth is beautiful and bright and kindly, but that is not all. The earth is also terrible and dark and cruel.
—Ursula K. Le Guin, 1970All men recognize the right of revolution, that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable.
—Henry David Thoreau, 1849The charm, one might say the genius, of memory is that it is choosy, chancy, and temperamental: it rejects the edifying cathedral and indelibly photographs the small boy outside, chawing a hunk of melon in the dust.
—Elizabeth Bowen, 1955Opposition is not necessarily enmity; it is merely misused and made an occasion for enmity.
—Sigmund Freud, 1930There is nothing worse for mortals than a wandering life.
—Homer, c. 750 BCDo you suppose it possible to know democracy without knowing the people?
—Xenophon, c. 370 BCMan is the one name belonging to every nation upon earth: there is one soul and many tongues, one spirit and various sounds; every country has its own speech, but the subjects of speech are common to all.
—Tertullian, c. 217