Quotes · Skopia

186 quotes

Perhaps the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet. — Edward Gibbon · 1789 The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators. — Edward Gibbon · 1789 Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery. — Edward Gibbon · 1781 All that is human must retrograde if it do not advance. — Edward Gibbon · 1789 Vicissitudes of fortune, which spares neither man nor the proudest of his works, which buries empires and cities in a common grave. — Edward Gibbon · 1789 Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way to the common feelings of mankind. — Edward Gibbon · 1776 All 16 quotes →

Herodotus10 quotes

If the Persians hide the sun, the battle will be in shade rather than sunlight. — Herodotus · 430 BC The man who has planned badly, if fortune is on his side, may have had a stroke of luck; but his plan was a bad one nonetheless. — Herodotus · 430 BC The most hateful torment for men is to have knowledge of everything but power over nothing. — Herodotus · 430 BC Not snow, no, nor rain, nor heat, nor night keeps them from accomplishing their appointed courses with all speed. — Herodotus · 430 BC No one is stupid enough to prefer war to peace; in peace sons bury their fathers and in war fathers bury their sons. However, I suppose the god must have wanted this to happen. — Herodotus · 430 BC If one were to order all mankind to choose the best set of rules in the world, each group would, after due consideration, choose its own customs; each group regards its own as being by far the best. — Herodotus · 430 BC All 10 quotes →

Pericles9 quotes

Happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous. — Pericles · 430 BC We are lovers of beauty without extravagance, and lovers of wisdom without unmanliness. Wealth is to us is not mere material for vainglory but an opportunity for achievement; and poverty we think it no disgrace to acknowledge but a real degradation to make no effort to overcome. — Pericles · 430 BC Our love of what is beautiful does not lead to extravagance; our love of the things of the mind does not make us soft. — Pericles · 430 BC But the bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding go out to meet it. — Pericles · 430 BC Our constitution is named a democracy, because it is in the hands not of the few but of the many. But our laws secure equal justice for all in their private disputes, and our public opinion welcomes and honors talent in every branch of achievement, not for any sectional reason but on grounds of excellence alone. And as we give free play to all in our public life, so we care the same spirit into our daily relations with one another... Open and friendly in our private intercourse, in our public acts we keep strictly within the control of law. We acknowledge the restraint of authority, and to the laws, more especially to those which offer protection to the oppressed and those unwritten ordinances whose transgression brings admitted shame. — Pericles · 430 BC Fix your eyes on the greatness of Athens as you have it before you day by day, fall in love with her, and when you feel her great, remember that this greatness was won by men with courage, with knowledge of their duty, and with a sense of honor in action... So they gave their bodies to the commonwealth and received each for his own memory, praise that will never die, and with it the grandest of all memorials, not that in which their mortal bones are laid, but a home in the minds of men, where their glory remains fresh to stir to speech or action as the occasion comes fresh to stir to speech or action as the occasion comes by. For the whole earth is the memorial of famous men; and their story is not graven only on stone over their native earth, but lives on far away, without visible symbol, woven into the stuff of other men's lives. — Pericles · 430 BC All 9 quotes →

Joseph Schumpeter7 quotes

The opening up of new markets, foreign or domestic, and the organizational development from the craft shop and factory to such concerns as U.S. Steel illustrate the same process of industrial mutation...That incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one. This process of Creative Destruction is the essential fact about capitalism. — Joseph Schumpeter · 1942 Economic progress, in capitalist society, means turmoil. — Joseph Schumpeter · 1942 Marxism is a religion. To the believer it presents, first, a system of ultimate ends that embody the meaning of life and are absolute standards by which to judge events and actions; and, secondly, a guide to those ends which implies a plan of salvation and the indication of the evil from which mankind, or a chosen section of mankind, is to be saved. — Joseph Schumpeter · 1942 In one important sense, Marxism is a religion. To the believer it presents, first, a system of ultimate ends that embody the meaning of life and are absolute standards by which to judge events and actions; and, secondly, a guide to those ends which implies a plan of salvation and the indication of the evil from which mankind, or a chosen section of mankind, is to be saved. — Joseph Schumpeter · 1942 Marxism is essentially a product of the bourgeois mind. — Joseph Schumpeter · 1942 Bureaucracy is not an obstacle to democracy but an inevitable complement to it. — Joseph Schumpeter · 1942 All 7 quotes →

Aristotle6 quotes

Hope is a waking dream. — Aristotle · 240 One soul dwelling in two bodies. — Aristotle Liars when they speak the truth are not believed. — Aristotle · 240 Learning is an ornament in prosperity, and a refuge in adversity. — Aristotle We should behave to our friends as we would wish our friends to behave to us. — Aristotle · 240 Beauty is a gift of God. — Aristotle · 240

Simone de Beauvoir5 quotes

This has always been a man's world, and none of the reasons hitherto brought forward in explanation of this fact has seemed adequate. — Simone de Beauvoir · 1949 When we abolish the slavery of half of humanity, together with the whole system of hypocrisy that it implies, then the "division" of humanity will reveal its genuine significance and the human couple will find its true form. — Simone de Beauvoir · 1949 To tell the truth, one is not born a genius: one becomes a genius. — Simone de Beauvoir · 1949 It is not in giving life but in risking life that man is raised above the animal; that is why superiority has been accorded in humanity not to the sex that brings forth but to that which kills. — Simone de Beauvoir · 1949 Few tasks are more like the torture of Sisyphus than housework, with its endless repetition... The housewife wears herself out marking time: she makes nothing, simply perpetuates the present. — Simone de Beauvoir · 1949

Thucydides5 quotes

You know as well as we do that right, as the word goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. — Thucydides · 404 BC Of the gods we believe, and of men we know, that by a necessary law of their nature they rule wherever they can. — Thucydides · 404 BC Great is the glory of the woman who occasions the least talk among men, whether of praise or of blame. — Thucydides · 404 BC The absence of romance in my history will, I fear, detract somewhat from its interest. — Thucydides · 404 BC The great wish of some is to avenge themselves on some particular enemy, the great wish of others to save their own pocket. Slow in assembling, they devote a very small fraction of the time to the consideration of any public object, most of it to the prosecution of their own objects. Meanwhile each fancies that no harm will come of his neglect, that it is the business of somebody else to look after this or that for him; and so, by the same notion being entertained by all separately, the common cause imperceptibly decays. — Thucydides · 404 BC

Alexis de Tocqueville4 quotes

It is not always by going from bad to worse that a society falls into revolution... The social order destroyed by a revolution is almost always better than that which immediately preceded it, and experience shows that the most dangerous moment for a bad government is generally that in which it sets about reform. — Alexis de Tocqueville · 1856 Despots themselves do not deny that freedom is excellent; only they desire it for themselves alone, and they maintain that everyone else is altogether unworthy of it. — Alexis de Tocqueville · 1856 Freedom alone substitutes from time to time for the love of material comfort more powerful and more lofty passions; it alone supplies ambition with greater objectives than the acquisition of riches, and creates the light that makes it possible to see and to judge the vices and virtues of mankind. — Alexis de Tocqueville · 1856 The French Revolution operated in reference to this world in exactly the same manner as religious revolutions acted in view of the other world. It considered the citizen as an abstract proposition apart from any particular society, in the same way as religions considered man as man, independent of country and time. — Alexis de Tocqueville · 1856

Charles Dickens4 quotes

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. — Charles Dickens · 1859 I wish you to know you have been the last dream of my soul. — Charles Dickens · 1859 It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known. — Charles Dickens · 1859 A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. — Charles Dickens · 1859

Julius Caesar4 quotes

I came, I saw, I conquered. — Julius Caesar · 46 BC The die is cast. — Julius Caesar · 49 BC Men are nearly always willing to believe what they wish. — Julius Caesar · 49 BC Gaul as a whole is divided into three parts. — Julius Caesar · 49 BC

Plutarch4 quotes

It is circumstance and proper timing that give an action its character and make it either good or bad. — Plutarch · 119 A Roman divorced from his wife, being highly blamed by his friends, who demanded, "Was she not chaste? Was she not fair? Was she not fruitful? Holding out his shoe, asked them whether it was not new and well made. "Yet," added he, "none of you can tell where it pinches me." — Plutarch · 119 How strongly does this bear out the truth of Plato's maxim, that he who wishes to be really rich ought to lessen his desires rather than increase his property, because if a man places no bounds to his covetousness, he never will be free from want and misery. — Plutarch It is not reasonable that he who does not shoot should hit the mark, nor that he who does not stand fast at his post should win the day, or that the helpless man should succeed or the coward prosper. — Plutarch

Sallust4 quotes

He preferred to be rather than to seem good. — Sallust · 42 BC The renown which riches or beauty confer is fleeting and frail; mental excellence is a splendid and lasting possession. — Sallust · 42 BC All our power lies in both mind and body; we employ the mind to rule, the body rather to serve; the one we have in common with the Gods, the other with the brutes. — Sallust · 42 BC In truth, prosperity tries the souls even of the wise. — Sallust · 42 BC

Winston Churchill4 quotes

In war: resolution. In defeat: defiance. In victory: magnanimity. In peace: goodwill. — Winston Churchill Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result. — Winston Churchill · 1898 If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons. — Winston Churchill · 1950 There are men in the world who derive as stern an exaltation from the proximity of disaster and ruin, as others from success. — Winston Churchill · 1898

G.M. Trevelyan3 quotes

Disinterested intellectual curiosity is the life-blood of real civilization. — G.M. Trevelyan · 1942 If the French noblesse had been capable of playing cricket with their peasants, their chateaux would never have been burnt. — G.M. Trevelyan · 1942 [Education] has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading. — G.M. Trevelyan · 1942

Hilary Mantel3 quotes

The things you think are disasters in your life are not disasters really. Almost anything can be turned around: out of every ditch, a path, if you can only see it. — Hilary Mantel · 2012 We think time cannot touch the dead, but it touches their monuments, leaving them snub-nosed and stub-fingered from the accidents and attrition of time. — Hilary Mantel · 2012 Statements, indictments, bills are circulated, shuffled between judges, prosecutors, the Attorney General, the Lord Chancellor’s office; each step in the process clear, logical, and designed to create corpses by due process of law. — Hilary Mantel · 2012

Karl Marx3 quotes

Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. — Karl Marx · 1852 Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living. — Karl Marx · 1852 Philosophy stands in the same relation to the study of the actual world as masturbation to sexual love. — Karl Marx · 1883

Lewis Mumford3 quotes

Every generation revolts against its fathers and makes friends with its grandfathers. — Lewis Mumford · 1931 The clock, not the steam-engine, is the key-machine of the modern industrial age. — Lewis Mumford · 1934 For over against the convenience of instantaneous communication is the fact that the great economical abstractions of writing, reading, and drawing, the media of reflective thought and deliberate action, will be weakened. — Lewis Mumford · 1934

Polybius3 quotes

There is no witness so dreadful, no accuser so terrible, as the conscience that dwells in the heart of every man. — Polybius · 118 BC Those who know how to win are much more numerous than those who know how to make proper use of their victories. — Polybius · 117 BC From this point onwards history becomes an organic whole: the affairs of Italy and Africa are connected with those of Asia and of Greece, and all events bear a relationship and contribute to a single end. — Polybius · 117 BC

Venerable Bede3 quotes

The present life of man, O king, seems to me, in comparison of that time which is unknown to us, like to the swift flight of a sparrow through the room wherein you sit at supper in winter, with your commanders and ministers, and a good fire in the midst, whilst the storms of rain and snow prevail ahead; the sparrow, I say, flying in at one door, and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry storm; but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, into the dark winter from which he had emerged. So this life of man appears for a short space, but of what went before, or what is to follow, we are utterly ignorant. — Venerable Bede · 731 No reptiles are found there, and no snake can live there; for, though often carried thither out of Britain, as soon as the ship comes near the shore, and the scent of the air reaches them, they die. — Venerable Bede · 731 If history records good things of good men, the thoughtful hearer is encouraged to imitate what is good. — Venerable Bede · 731

Anacharsis2 quotes

Written laws are like spiders' webs; they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor, but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful. — Anacharsis Anacharsis laughed at Solon for imagining the dishonesty and covetousness of his countrymen could be restrained by written laws, which were like spiders' webs, and would catch, it is true, the weak and poor, but easily be broken by the mighty and rich. — Anacharsis · 119

Artabanus2 quotes

It is the gods' custom to bring low all things of surpassing greatness. — Artabanus · 430 BC When life is so burdensome, death has become of man a sought-after refuge. — Artabanus · 430 BC

Barbara Tuchman2 quotes

Every successful revolution puts on in time the robes of the tyrant it has deposed. — Barbara Tuchman · 1972 Dead battles, like dead generals, hold the military mind in their dead grip, and Germans, no less than other peoples, prepare for the last war. — Barbara Tuchman · 1962

C.L.R. James2 quotes

It is Toussaint's supreme merit that while he saw European civilisation as a valuable and necessary thing, and strove to lay its foundations among his people, he never had the illusion that it conferred any moral superiority. He knew French, British, and Spanish imperialists for the insatiable gangsters that they were, that there is no oath too sacred for them to break, no crime, deception, treachery, cruelty, destruction of human life and property which they would not commit against those who could not defend themselves. — C.L.R. James · 1938 When history is written as it ought to be written, it is the moderation and long patience of the masses at which men will wonder, not their ferocity. — C.L.R. James · 1938

Epicurus2 quotes

Pleasure is the beginning and the end of living happily. — Epicurus · 240 It is impossible to live pleasurably without living wisely, well, and justly, and impossible to live wisely, well and justly without living pleasurably. — Epicurus · 240

Frederick Jackson Turner2 quotes

What the Mediterranean Sea was to the Greeks, breaking the bond of custom, offering new experiences, calling out new institutions and activities, that, and more, the ever retreating frontier has been to the United States directly, and to the nations of Europe more remotely. And now, four centuries from the discovery of America, at the end of a hundred years of life under the Constitution, the frontier has gone, and with its going has closed the first period of American history. — Frederick Jackson Turner · 1893 The frontier is the outer edge of the wave-the meeting-point between savagery and civilization... And line of most rapid and effective Americanization. The wilderness masters the colonist. — Frederick Jackson Turner · 1893

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel2 quotes

We may affirm absolutely that nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion. — Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel · 1832 The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom. — Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel · 1832

Livy2 quotes

The worst kind of shame is that caused by parsimony or poverty. — Livy · 9 BC Our ancestors refused to allow any woman to transact even private business without a guardian to represent her; women had to be under the control of fathers, brothers, or husbands. But we (heaven preserve us!) are now allowing them even to take part in politics, and actually to appear in the Forum and to be present at our meetings and assemblies!... Give a free rein to their unprincipled nature, to this untamed animal, and then expect them to set a limit on their own license! — Livy · 9 BC

Michael Herr2 quotes

Out on the street I couldn't tell the Vietnam veterans from the rock and roll veterans. The Sixties had made so many casualties, its war and its music had run power off the same circuit for so long they didn't even have to fuse. — Michael Herr · 1977 I think that Vietnam was what we had instead of happy childhoods. — Michael Herr · 1977

Samuel Eliot Morison2 quotes

A tough but nervous, tenacious but restless race; materially ambitious, yet prone to introspection, and subject to waves of religious emotion... A race whose typical member is eternally torn between a passion for righteousness and a desire to get on in the world. — Samuel Eliot Morison · 1921 America was discovered accidentally by a great seaman who was looking for something else; when discovered it was not wanted; and most of the exploration for the next fifty years was done in the hope of getting through or around it. America was named after a man who discovered no part of the New World. History is like that, very chancy. — Samuel Eliot Morison · 1965

Tacitus2 quotes

The gods are on the side of the stronger. — Tacitus · 110 BC These times have the rare good fortune that you may think what you like and say what you think. — Tacitus · 110 BC

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