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Quotes that I like:
The time is always right to do what is right.
— Dr Martin Luther King
The next generation will not be held hostage to energy sources from the last century.
— Barack Hussein Obama II, 44th President of the United States of America[1]
Common sense is not so common.
— Voltaire, Dictionnaire Philosophique (1764)
Politik is die Fortsetzung des Krieges mit anderen Mitteln
— Berlin Wall graffiti. Translation: Politics is the continuation of war with other methods
When we are born, we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.
— William Shakespeare, King Lear (Lear, Scene vi)
Via vita est
— Roman truism: "Life is the road"
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
Architecture is frozen music.
— Johann Wolfgang Goethe [2], Letter to Eckmann (March 23, 1829)
Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. [3]
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. [3]
— Samuel Johnson, William Boswell's Life of Johnson
Children are the only bold philosophers. And bold philosophers are invariably children. One should always be like a child
— Evgeny Zamyatin, We (I-330)
Selfishness has established its system ... in our society, and we experience ... all the calamities of community without the accompaniment of a communal spirit.
— Friedrich Schiller, On the Aesthetic Education of Man (5th Letter)
So far from setting us free, culture only develops a new want with every power that it bestows on us... The maxim of passive obedience passes for the supreme wisdom of life.
— ibid.
With the monotonous noise of the wheel he drives everlastingly in his ears, he [man] never develops the harmony of his being, and instead of inspiring humanity upon his nature, he becomes merely the imprint of his occupation, of his science.
— ibid., (6th Letter)
As soon as man is only a content of time, he is no longer, and consequently he has no content either.
— ibid., (13th Letter)
In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.[4]
From time to time we've been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? All of us together, in and out of government, must bear the burden.
— ibid.
There is no such thing as failure, only deferred success
"Cheshire Puss," she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little wider. "Come, it’s pleased so far," thought Alice, and she went on. "Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don’t much care where–" said Alice.
"Then it doesn’t matter which way you go," said the Cat.
"–so long as I get SOMEWHERE," Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh, you’re sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."
There is no such place as away
Notes
edit- ^ "Obama on the climate bill: "We will get it done"". grist. 2010-06-02. Retrieved 2010-06-04.
- ^ Also attributed to Friedrich Schiller
- ^ a b Do not construe these two quotes as being contradictory, nor as a thinly-veiled criticism of JFK. The explanatory note at Wikiquote gives that extreme patriotism was viewed unfavourably by Dr. Johnson. I also do not take JFK's quote to be a call for blind absolute patriotism, the kind that saw George W. Bush re-elected Cite error: The named reference "patriotism" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
- ^ Only bad government, not government per se
- ^ "Top 10 Phrases of 2005". LanguageMonitor.com. Retrieved 2007-05-04.
- ^ English Corner. "Top 10 Phrases of 2005". Retrieved 2007-05-04.