It is as wholly wrong to blame Marx for what was done in his name, as it is to blame Jesus for what was done in his.
Tony Benn 1925 - 2014
1925 - 2014
Entire Collection
Democracy is grounded upon so childish a complex of fallacies that they must be protected by a rigid system of taboos, else even halfwits would argue it to pieces. Its first concern must be to penalise the free play of ideas.
H. L. Mencken 1880 - 1956
1880 - 1956
I can understand that people want to feel special and important and so on, but that self-obsession seems a bit pathetic somehow. Not being able to accept that you're just this collection of cells, intelligent to whatever degree, capable of feeling emotion to whatever degree, for a limited amount of time and so on, on this tiny little rock orbiting this not particularly important sun in one of just 400 million galaxies, and whatever other levels of reality there might be via something like brane-theory (of multiple dimensions)... really, it's not about you.
Iain Banks 1954 - 2013
1954 - 2013
How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?
Arthur Conan Doyle 1859 - 1930
1859 - 1930
Love comes from blindness, Friendship from knowledge.
Roger de Rabutin, comte de Bussy 1618 - 1693
1618 - 1693
Empires are synonymous with centralised—if occasionally schematised—hierarchical power structures in which influence is restricted to an economically privileged class retaining its advantages through—usually—a judicious use of oppression and skilled manipulation of both the society’s information dissemination systems and its lesser—as a rule nominally independent—power systems. In short, it’s all about dominance.
1954 - 2013
The player of games
A witty saying proves nothing.
1694 - 1778
Le dîner du comte de Boulainvilliers (1767)
Bristow reasons; Bristow quickens; aaaaah Bristow!
1940 - 2012
Darts Commentary
Poetry is: a classifying, a botanising, a voracity of contemplation, a pleasure, an indulgence, an infatuation in which the actual is a deft benficence.
Marianne Moore 1887 - 1972
1887 - 1972
To evoke posterity is to weep on your own grave, ventriloquizing for the unborn.
Robert Graves 1895 - 1985
1895 - 1985
A whizzpopper!' cried the BFG, beaming at her. 'Us giants is making whizzpoppers all the time! Whizzpopping is a sign of happiness. It is music in our ears! You surely is not telling me that a little whizzpopping is forbidden among human beans?'
1916 - 1990
The BFG
The Answer to the Great Question Of Life, the Universe and Everything is… Forty-two
Douglas Adams 1952 - 2001
Deep thought- The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy ‘‘Fit the Fifth’’ (radio program) (1978)
1952 - 2001
Deep thought- The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy ‘‘Fit the Fifth’’ (radio program) (1978)
In reality there are no separate events. Life moves along like water, it's all connected as the source of the river is connected to the mouth and the ocean.
1915 - 1973
Watts, A. (1977). The essential Alan Watts. Berkeley, Calif.: Celestial Arts.
People forget years and remember moments.
Ann Beattie born 1947
born 1947
You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question
Albert Camus 1913 - 1960
1913 - 1960
Explaining how billions of neurons swapping chemicals gives rise to such subjective experiences as consciousness, self-awareness, and awareness that others are conscious and self-aware is the major unsolved problem in biology.
Francis Crick 1916 - 2004
1916 - 2004
He forgets that he can die who complains of misery, we are in the power of no calamity, while death is in our own.
Thomas Browne 1605 - 1682
1605 - 1682
I feel that I am reserved for some end or other.
Robert Clive 1725 - 1774
When his pistol failed to go off twice, while attempting to commit suicide : Knowles, E. (1999). The Oxford dictionary of quotations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
1725 - 1774
When his pistol failed to go off twice, while attempting to commit suicide : Knowles, E. (1999). The Oxford dictionary of quotations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
The universities are available only to those who share my revolutionary beliefs.
Fidel Castro 1926 - 2016
1926 - 2016
Mankind is divisible into two great classes: hosts and guests.
Max Beerbohm 1872 - 1956
1872 - 1956
I have often been surprised that Mathematics, the quintessence of Truth, should have found admirers so few and so languid. Frequent consideration and minute scrutiny have at length unravelled the cause; viz. that though Reason is feasted, Imagination is starved; whilst Reason is luxuriating in its proper Paradise, Imagination is wearily travelling on a dreary desert.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772 - 1834
1772 - 1834
Painting isn't an aesthetic operation; it's a form of magic designed as a mediator between this strange hostile world and us.
1881 - 1973
Reported by Françoise Gilot, Life with Picasso (1964)
What we know is not much. What we do not know is immense.
1749 - 1827
Last words
She tells enough white lies to ice a wedding cake.
Margot Asquith 1864 - 1945
Referring to Lady Desborough : Knowles, E. (1999). The Oxford dictionary of quotations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
1864 - 1945
Referring to Lady Desborough : Knowles, E. (1999). The Oxford dictionary of quotations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.
George Orwell 1903 - 1950
'The Freedom of the Press', his proposed preface to Animal Farm (written 1945, first published 1972) Quote Investigator, If Liberty Means Anything At All It Means the Right To Tell People What They Do Not Want To Hear (2020)
1903 - 1950
'The Freedom of the Press', his proposed preface to Animal Farm (written 1945, first published 1972)
Quote Investigator, If Liberty Means Anything At All It Means the Right To Tell People What They Do Not Want To Hear (2020)