Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
If one man offers you democracy and another offers you a bag of grain, at what stage of starvation do you prefer the grain to the vote?
If we were all given by magic the power to read each other's thoughts, I suppose the first effect would be to dissolve all friendships.
The reformative effect of punishment is a belief that dies hard, chiefly I think, because it is so satisfying to our sadistic impulses.
My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race.
Too many young folk have addiction to superficial things and not enough conviction for substantial things like justice, truth and love.
I think we must never, ever demonize one another. That's true not just black people to black people; that's human being to human being.
Now, myself, I'm not a pacifist at all. I believe in just war. I would have joined the spirit of the nation to fight against apartheid.
Your mind will really talk to you when you begin to deny fulfillment to your desires, and you will find how subtle and shameless it is.
Those who have been touched by forgiveness and new life and have thus entered into God's rule become, like Jesus, bearers of that rule.
Churches have given us great treasures such as music and architecture. Whether that pays for the harm they have done is another matter.
The first ideas of religion arose, not from contemplation of the works of nature, but from a concern with regard to the events of life.
If you are to be kept right, you must possess either good friends or red-hot enemies. The one will warn you, the other will expose you.
Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.
Thought is a process of exaggeration. The refusal to exaggerate is not infrequently an alibi for the disinclination to think or praise.
The nature of a society is largely determined by the direction in which talent and ambition flow - by the tilt of the social landscape.
He who suffers wins in politics. The martyr does not obtain the victory personally, but his group, his successors, win in the long run.
A man's memory may almost become the art of continually varying and misrepresenting his past, according to his interest in the present.
Friends are generally of the same sex, for when men and women agree, it is only in the conclusions; their reasons are always different.
A man without passion is only a latent force, only a possibility, like a stone waiting for the blow from the iron to give forth sparks.
The avant-garde and the beatniks share in the function of entertaining without endangering the good conscience of the men of good will.
Unfortunately, anti-Darwinism keeps playing minor variations on the same negative themes and adds nothing to our understanding of life.
Risk analysis can cater to any sort of hazard, but their profession owes its existence to a relatively narrow band of possible dangers.
Whatever is not done by the permission of Allah will not happen, and what is not done for the sake of Allah will not benefit or remain.
In sum, thought and reflection have been rendered thoroughly pointless by the circumstances in which modern men and women live and act.
The only artist who does not deserve respect is the one who works to please the public, for commercial success or for official success.
The surprises of thought are like those of love: they wear out. But here too you can carry on for a long time doing your conjugal duty.
Supreme happiness consists in self-content; that we may gain this self-content, we are placed upon this earth and endowed with freedom.
The schools must fashion the person, and fashion him in such a way that he simply cannot will otherwise than what you wish him to will.
Poetry has historically been allied with religion and morals; it has served the purpose of penetrating the mysterious depths of things.
No system has ever as yet existed which did not in some form involve the exploitation of some human beings for the advantage of others.
Affectation is an awkward and forced imitation of what should be genuine and easy, wanting the beauty that accompanies what is natural.
If all be a Dream, then he doth but dream that he makes the Question; and so it is not much matter that a waking Man should answer him.
Liberal constitutional democracy is supposed to ensure that each citizen is free and equal and protected by basic rights and liberties.
What citizens of a free country would listen to any offers of good and skillful administration in return for the abdication of freedom?
Man is a substantial emigrant on a pilgrimage of being, and it is accordingly meaningless to set limits to what he is capable of being.
The essence of man is, discontent, divine discontent; a sort of love without a beloved, the ache we feel in a member we no longer have.
Things and actions are what they are, and the consequences of them will be what they will be: why then should we desire to be deceived?
Water is the softest thing, yet it can penetrate mountains and earth. This shows clearly the principle of softness overcoming hardness.
If the sage wants to stand above people, he must speak to them from below. If he wants to lead people, he must follow them from behind.
What is well rooted cannot be pulled up. What is firmly grasped will not slip loose. It will be honoured from generation to generation.
The fact is that, under a capitalistic system, the ultimate bosses are the consumers. The sovereign is not the state, it is the people.
Credit expansion can bring about a temporary boom. But such a fictitious prosperity must end in a general depression of trade, a slump.
The middle-of-the-road policy is not an economic system that can last. It is a method for the realization of socialism by installments.
The difference between a good and a poor architect is that the poor architect succumbs to every temptation and the good one resists it.
The popular scientific books by our scientists aren't the outcome of hard work, but are written when they are resting on their laurels.
In reality there is no such thing as an inflation of prices, relatively to gold. There is such a thing as a depreciated paper currency.
There are eight levels of charity.... The highest is when you strengthen a man's hand until he need no longer be dependent upon others.
He, however, who begins with Metaphysics, will not only become confused in matters of religion, but will fall into complete infidelity.
They who dare to ask anything of a friend, by their very request seem to imply that they would do anything for the sake of that friend.
This excessive licence, which the anarchists think is the only true freedom, provides the stock, as it were, from which a tyrant grows.