The Quotes canon
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Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Detective fiction3 quotes
The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter. — Dashiell Hammett · 1930He felt like somebody had taken the lid off life and let him look at the works. — Dashiell Hammett · 1930That's the part of it I always liked. He adjusted himself to beams falling, and then no more of them fell, and he adjusted himself to them not falling. — Dashiell Hammett · 1930Political speech3 quotes
A spirit of national masochism prevails, encouraged by an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals. — Spiro Agnew · 1969Ultraliberalism today translates into a whimpering isolationism in foreign policy, a mulish obstructionism in domestic policy, a pusillanimous pussyfooting on the critical issue of law and order. — Spiro Agnew · 1970In the United States today, we have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism. — Spiro Agnew · 1970Autobiography and memoir2 quotes
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it. — Upton Sinclair · 1935A drug is neither moral or immoral-it's a chemical compound. The compound itself is not a menace to society until a human being treats it as if consumption bestowed a temporary licence to act like an asshole. — Frank Zappa · 1989Legal writing2 quotes
If the First Amendment means anything, it means that a State has no business telling a man, sitting alone in his own house, what books he may read or what films he may watch. — Thurgood Marshall · 1969The measure of a country's greatness is its ability to retain compassion in times of crisis. — Thurgood Marshall · 1972Political literature2 quotes
The average man doesn't want to be free. He simply wants to be safe. — H.L. Mencken · 1926Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust. — John Rawls · 1971Sociology2 quotes
To do exactly as your neighbors do is the only sensible rule. — Emily Post · 1922Ideal conversation is an exchange of thought, and not, as many of those who worry most about their shortcomings believe, an eloquent exhibition of wit or oratory. — Emily Post · 1922Feminist literature1 quote
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary. — H.L. Mencken · 1918Philosophical literature1 quote
Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust. — John Rawls · 1971