All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the power of the state.
—Albert Camus, 1951
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Quotes
What is the hardest task in the world? To think.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1841Traveling is like flirting with life. It’s like saying, “I would stay here and love you, but I have to go; this is my station.”
—Lisa St. Aubin de Terán, 1989Mammon, n. The god of the world’s leading religion. His chief temple is in the holy city of New York.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1911There is a city in which you find everything you desire—handsome people, pleasures, ornaments of every kind—all that the natural person craves. However, you cannot find a single wise person there.
—Rumi, c. 1250The ingrained idea that, because there is no king and they despise titles, the Americans are a free people is pathetically untrue.
—Margot Asquith, 1922People are trapped in history, and history is trapped in them.
—James Baldwin, 1953The Revolution is made by man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit from day to day.
—Che Guevara, 1968It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.
—Dolores Ibárruri, 1936Yes to a market economy, no to a market society.
—Lionel Jospin, 1998Do you suppose that will change the sense of the morals, the fact that we can’t use morals as a means of judging the city because we couldn’t stand it? And that we’re changing our whole moral system to suit the fact that we’re living in a ridiculous way?
—Philip Johnson, 1965Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules, and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence; in other words it is war minus the shooting.
—George Orwell, 1945Freedom of the press is only guaranteed to those who own one.
—A.J. Liebling, 1960