Archive

Quotes

You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.

—Aristophanes, c. 424 BC

Refrigerators and television sets, or even rockets sent to the moon, do not change man into God.

—Czesław Miłosz, 1960

There be beasts that, at a year old, observe more, and pursue that which is for their good more prudently, than a child can do at ten.

—Thomas Hobbes, 1651

Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.

—Benjamin Franklin, 1776

I shall soon be six-and-twenty. Is there anything in the future that can possibly console us for not being always twenty-five?

—Lord Byron, 1813

When you name yourself, you always name another.

—Bertolt Brecht, 1926

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

The happy ending is our national belief.

—Mary McCarthy, 1947

Repetition is the mother of education.

—Jean Paul, 1807

In every man is a wild beast; most of them don’t know how to hold it back, and the majority give it full rein when they are not restrained by terror of law.

—Frederick the Great, 1759

The tune I remember, could I but keep the words.

—Virgil, 38 BC

Gambling is the child of avarice, the brother of iniquity, and the father of mischief.

—George Washington, 1783

All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.

—Aristotle, c. 330 BC