Quotes

I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.

--Voltaire (1694-1778)

The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the force of the Crown. It may be frail; its roof may shake; the wind may blow though it; the storms may enter; the rain may enter - but the King of England cannot enter; all his forces dare not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement.

--William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatam (1708-1778), Speech on the excise bill.

Ignorance is bliss.

--Thomas Gray (1716-1771)

Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno.
Un pour tous, tous pour un.
One for all, all for one.
我为人人，人人为我。

--Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) in Les Trois Mousquetaires

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

--Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

Politics is the art of the possible.

--Otto Von Bismarck (1815 - 1898), remark, Aug. 11, 1867

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.

--Karl Marx (1818-1883)

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

--Lord Acton (1834-1902)

"I have nothing to declare except my genius."

--Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), upon arriving at US customs 1882.

Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not.

--George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

My object in life is to unite my avocation and my vocation, as my two eyes are one in sight.

--Robert Frost (1874-1963)

Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.

--Winston S. Churchill (1874-1965)

I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.
我孤寂地生活着，年轻时痛苦万分，而在成熟之年却甘之如饴。

--Albert Einstein (1879-1955), in "Self-Portrait," 1936.

The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.

Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.

--John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946)

Biography is history seen through the prism of a person.

--Louis Fischer (1896-1970)

As a moth is drawn to the light, so is a litigant drawn to the United States.

--Lord Denning (1899-1999)

I don't necessarily agree with everything I say.

--Marshall McLuhan, Canadian author, educator, & philosopher (1911 - 1980)

The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village.

--Marshall McLuhan, "Gutenberg Galaxy", 1962

The medium is the message.

--Marshall McLuhan, "Understanding Media", 1964

I don't care who writes a nation's laws, or crafts its treatises, if I can write its economics textbooks.

--Paul A. Samuelson (1915-2009)

Journalists are the midwives of history.

--Unknown

Moral politics in the long run is realpolitik.

--Unknown

An ounce of luck is better than a pound of wisdom.

--English proverb

Curiosity killed the cat.

--English proverb

Man thinks, God laughs. (L'homme pense, Dieu rit)

--Jewish proverb