A quotation from Propertius

No one has endless fortune, eternal beauty: sooner or later death awaits us all.
 
[Nec forma aeternum aut cuiquam est fortuna perennis:
   longius aut propius mors sua quemque manet.]

Propertius (50–16 BC) Roman elegiac poet [Sextus Propertius]
Elegies, Book 2, Elegy 28, l. 57ff (2.28.57-58) [tr. Kline (2001), 2.28a]


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A quotation from Shakespeare

FOOL:             And thus the whirligig of time brings in
   his revenges.

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English dramatist and poet
Twelfth Night, Act 5, sc. 1, l. 399ff (5.1.399-400) (1601)


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A quotation from Alice Henry

Men, even good men, cannot be trusted to take care of women’s interests.

Alice Henry (1857–1943) Australian suffragist, journalist, trade unionist
The Trade Union Woman, ch. 12 (1915)


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A quotation from Smedley Butler

War is a billionaire’s extortion racket, baptized in the blood of impoverished teenagers.

Smedley Butler (1881–1940) American Marine Corps officer, war hero, anti-war activist
(Spurious)


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A quotation from Edward R. Murrow

When politicians complain, as they have in several countries, that television turns their proceedings into a circus, it should be made clear that the circus was already there, and that television has merely demonstrated that not all the performers are well trained.

Edward R. Murrow (1908–1965) American journalist
Speech (1959-10-19), “Television and Politics,” British Association Granada Lectures, London Guildhall


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in reply to M. Grégoire

Perhaps. But it might be more to Murrow's point that if the same legislators are willing to have "less serious" debates when the cameras are on, how serious are their "serious" debates when the cameras are off. If they're that willing to pander to their constituents, who else are they pandering to less publicly?

A quotation from Hemingway

So far, about morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American writer
Death in the Afternoon, ch. 1 (1932)


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A quotation from Richard Feynman

In physics the truth is rarely perfectly clear, and that is certainly universally the case in human affairs. Hence, what is not surrounded by uncertainty cannot be the truth.

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American physicist
Letter (1976-02-27) to the Editor, California Tech magazine


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A quotation from Graham Ericsson

Most tyrants are, by nature, short-sighted. Though they aspire to an eternal panoply of statues and symphonies in their honor, they rarely focus on constructive present actions that will lead to a future where their name is even known, let alone praised. As time goes on, they either fall into the delusion of omnipotence, or else become obsessed with holding onto embattled power until the bitter end. Neither mental state leads to laying a healthy foundation for posterity.

Graham Ericsson (b. 1961) American technologist, writer, aphorist
Journal (2026-04-22)


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in reply to WIST Quotations

Narcissus, the self-lover, is a famous figure in Greek mythology, known for his striking beauty, Narcissus captured the hearts of many, but their admiration was returned with disdain and contempt.

Nemesis, the goddess of retribution, watched Narcissus' cruel, insensitive and cold-hearted disregard for those who loved him. To exact justice, Nemesis allowed Narcissus to view his own reflection in a pool of water. Narcissus fell deeply in love with the image in the water and came to realize the truth: that his love would never be reciprocated. He fell into deep despair and took his own life. According to legend, from the place of his death sprang the narcissus flower, a symbol of his self-obsession.

The story of Narcissus serves as a powerful moral lesson of the dangers of excessive pride and vanity and the consequences of self-obsession and indifference to the feelings of others.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Source: greekmythology.com/Myths/Morta…

A quotation from Terry Pratchett

People think that professional soldiers think a lot about fighting, but serious professional soldiers think a lot more about food and a warm place to sleep, because these are two things that are generally hard to get, whereas fighting tends to turn up all the time.

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author
Discworld No. 13, Small Gods (1992)


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A quotation from La Rochefoucauld

Love, like fire, must be constantly in motion; it dies when it ceases to have hopes or fears.
 
[L’amour, aussi bien que le feu, ne peut subsister sans un mouvement continuel, et il cesse de vivre dès qu’il cesse d’espérer ou de craindre.]

François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680) French epigrammatist, memoirist, noble
Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales [Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims], ¶75 (1665-1678) [tr. Stevens (1939)]


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A quotation from Samuel Johnson

A transition from an author’s book to his conversation, is too often like an entrance into a large city, after a distant prospect. Remotely, we see nothing but spires of temples and turrets of palaces, and imagine it the residence of splendour, grandeur and magnificence; but when we have passed the gates, we find it perplexed with narrow passages, disgraced with despicable cottages, embarrassed with obstructions, and clouded with smoke.

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Essay (1750-05-05), The Rambler, No. 14


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A quotation from Robert Ingersoll

The general objection to the new is, that it differs somewhat from the old, and the fact that it does differ is urged as an argument against its truth.

Robert Green Ingersoll (1833–1899) American lawyer, freethinker, orator
Lecture (1881-05-01) “The Great Infidels,” Booth’s Theater, New York


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A quotation from Adlai Stevenson

What a man knows at fifty that he did not know at twenty is, for the most part, incommunicable. The laws, the aphorisms, the generalizations, the universal truths, the parables and the old saws — all of the observations about life which can be communicated handily in ready, verbal packages — are as well known to a man at twenty who has been attentive as to a man at fifty. He has been told them all, he has read them all, and he has probably repeated them all before he graduates from college; but he has not lived them all.

Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) American politician, diplomat, statesman
Speech (1954-03-22), “The Educated Citizen,” Senior Class Banquet, Dillon Gymnasium, Princeton University


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A quotation from Dryden

ÆGEON: Of no distemper, of no blast he died,
   But fell like autumn-fruit that mellowed long;
   Even wondered at, because he dropt no sooner.
   Fate seemed to wind him up for fourscore years;
   Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more:
   Till, like a clock worn out with eating time,
   The wheels of weary life at last stood still.

John Dryden (1631–1700) English poet, dramatist, critic
Œdipus, Act 4, sc. 1 (1679)


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A quotation from Twain

That is the way we are made: we don’t reason, where we feel; we just feel.

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Novel (1889), A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Part 3 “The Tale of the Lost Land,” ch. 11 “The Yankee in Search of Adventures”

Mark Twain quote


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A quotation from Robert Louis Stevenson

They were a rough lot indeed, as sailors mostly are: being men rooted out of all the kindly parts of life, and condemned to toss together on the rough seas, with masters no less cruel.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) Scottish essayist, novelist, poet
Novel (1886), Kidnapped, ch. 7 “I Go to Sea in the Brig Covenant of Dysart”


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A quotation from Horace

He who puts off the hour to begin living rightly
   Is like the yokel who stands at the stream with a sigh:
“I can’t get across. I’ll wait here till it runs dry.”
   Meanwhile, it flows, forever flows on and rolls by.
 
[Qui recte vivendi prorogat horam,
rusticus exspectat dum defluat amnis; at ille
labitur et labitur in omne volubilis aevum.]

Horace (65–8 BC) Roman poet, satirist, soldier, politician [Quintus Horatius Flaccus]
Epistles [Epistularum, Letters], Book 1, ep. 2 “To Lollius,” l. 41ff (1.2.41-42) (20 BC) [tr. Palmer Bovie (1959)]


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A quotation from Peter Drucker

No institution can possibly survive if it needs geniuses or supermen to manage it. It must be organized in such a way as to be able to get along under a leadership composed of average human beings.

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) Austrian-American business consultant
The Concept of the Corporation, Part 2, ch. 1 (1946)


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A quotation from George Orwell

At the time I could not see beyond the moral dilemma that is presented to the weak in a world governed by the strong: Break the rules or perish.

George Orwell (1903–1950) English journalist, essayist, writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
Essay (1948-06), “‘Such, Such Were the Joys …’,” Partisan Review (1952-09)


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A quotation from Thomas Carlyle

Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure that there is one rascal less in the world.

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish essayist and historian
(Attributed)


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A quotation from Cicero

MARCUS: Nor am I asham’d, as some others are, to confess I do not know, what I do not.
 
[Nec me pudet ut istos fateri nescire quod nesciam.]

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BC) Roman orator, statesman, philosopher
Tusculan Disputations [Tusculanae Disputationes], Book 1, ch. 25 (1.25) / sec. 60 (1.60) (45 BC) [tr. Wase (1643)]

Cicero quote


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A quotation from Doctor Who

   SKAGRA: “Take over the Universe.” (laughs) How childish. Who could possibly want to take over the Universe?
   THE DOCTOR: Exactly! That’s what I keep on trying to tell people. It’s a troublesome place, difficult to administer, and as a piece of real estate it’s worthless because by definition there’d be no one to sell it to.

Doctor Who (1963–1989) British science fiction television series, original run (BBC)
17×06* “Shada,” Part 5 (1980-02-16*) [w. Douglas Adams]


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A quotation from Eric Hoffer

Self-righteousness is a loud din raised to drown the voice of guilt within us. There is a guilty conscience behind every brazen word and act and behind every manifestation of self-righteousness.

Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, Part 3, ch. 14, § 69 (3.14.69) (1951)


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A quotation from Montaigne

And certainly a wise man never loses anything if he has himself.
 
[Certes l’homme d’entendement n’a rien perdu, s’il a soy-mesme.]

Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) French essayist
Essays, Book 1, ch. 38 (1.38)), “Of Solitude [De la solitude]” (1572) [tr. Cotton/Hazlitt (1877)]


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A quotation from Voltaire

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
 
[Si Dieu n’existait pas, il faudrait l’inventer.]

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer [pseud. of Francois-Marie Arouet]
Poem (1769-03-12), “Epistle to the Author of ‘The Three Imposters [Trois Imposteurs],'” l. 22

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him. - Voltaire


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A quotation from Douglas Adams

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experiences of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.

Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English author, humorist, screenwriter
Last Chance to See, ch. 4 (1990) [with Mark Carwardine]

Douglas Adams quote


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A quotation from Bertrand Russell

Punctuality is a quality the need of which is bound up with social co-operation. It has nothing to do with the relation of the soul to God, or with mystic insight, or with any of the matters with which the more elevated and spiritual moralists are concerned. One would be surprised to find a saint getting drunk, but one would not be surprised to find him late for an engagement. And yet in the ordinary business of life punctuality is absolutely necessary.

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Education and the Social Order [Education and the Modern World], ch. 2 “The Negative Theory of Education” (1932)


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A quotation from Molly Ivins

I try to look at politics not as a spectrum that runs from right to left, but a scale that runs from top to bottom. Then the only political question is: Who’s it screw, and who’s doing the screwing?

Molly Ivins (1944–2007) American writer, political columnist [Mary Tyler Ivins]
Interview (2006-10-09), “Who’s It Screw, and Who’s Doing the Screwing?” by Rosalind Alexander, Seattle Weekly


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A quotation from James Howell

When war begins Hell opens.
 
[Quando la guerra Comincia, s’apre l’inferno.]

James Howell (c. 1594–1666) Welsh historian, writer, aphorist
Paroimiographia [Παροιμιογραφία]: Proverbs, or, Old Sayed Sawes & Adages, “Proverbs in Italian” (1659)
[compiler]


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A quotation from Bill Watterson

   CALVIN: My powerful brain has come up with a topic for my paper.
   HOBBES: Great.
   CALVIN: I’ll write about the debate over tyrannosaurs. Were they fearsome predators or disgusting scavengers?
   HOBBES: Which side will you defend?
   CALVIN: Oh, I believe they were fearsome predators, definitely.
   HOBBES: How come?
   CALVIN: They’re so much cooler that way.

Bill Watterson (b. 1958) American cartoonist
Calvin and Hobbes (1993-11-25)

Calvin and Hobbes (1993-11-25)


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A quotation from Ambrose Bierce

FAULT, n. One of my offenses, as distinguished from one of yours, the latter being crimes.

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914?) American writer and journalist
“Fault,” “Devil’s Dictionary” column, San Francisco Wasp (1884-08-02)


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A quotation from Hannah Arendt

Totalitarianism is never content to rule by external means, namely, through the state and a machinery of violence; thanks to its peculiar ideology and the role assigned to it in this apparatus of coercion, totalitarianism has discovered a means of dominating and terrorizing human beings from within.

Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) German-American philosopher, political theorist
Origins of Totalitarianism, Part 3, ch. 10 “A Classless Society,” sec. 1 (1951)


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A quotation (probably not) from Eleanor Roosevelt

He who learns but does not think is lost. He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) First Lady of the US (1933–1945), politician, diplomat, activist
(Misattributed)


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A quotation from John Lescroart

The essence of fascism is to make laws forbidding everything and then enforce them selectively against your enemies.

John Lescroart (b. 1948) American novelist
A Plague of Secrets, Part 1 (2009)


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