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What a chimera then is man! What a novelty! What a monster, what a chaos, what a contradiction, what a prodigy! Judge of all things, feeble earth-worn, depository of truth, a sink of uncertainty and error, the glory and the shame of the universe. — Blaise Pascal · 1670What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! Who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment, & death itself in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment... Inflict on his fellow men a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose. — Thomas Jefferson · 1786If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn · 1973I find that the best goodness I have has some tincture of vice. — Michel de Montaigne · 1580We know now that a man can read Goethe or Rilke in the evening, that he can play Bach and Schubert, and go to his day's work at Auschwitz in the morning. — George Steiner · 1967Every one is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody. — Mark Twain · 1897All 13 quotes →
If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn · 1973All human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil. — Robert Louis Stevenson · 1886
Yin and yang2 quotes
I find that the best goodness I have has some tincture of vice. — Michel de Montaigne · 1580The beauty of the world which is so soon to perish, has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart asunder. — Virginia Woolf · 1929
Ambition1 quote
Virtue is choked with foul ambition. — William Shakespeare · 1594
Every one is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody. — Mark Twain · 1897
Trembled to think of that mysterious thing in the soul, which seems to acknowledge no human jurisdiction, but in spite of the individual's own innocent self, will still dream horrid dreams, and mutter unmentionable thoughts. — Herman Melville · 1852
All human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil. — Robert Louis Stevenson · 1886
Trembled to think of that mysterious thing in the soul, which seems to acknowledge no human jurisdiction, but in spite of the individual's own innocent self, will still dream horrid dreams, and mutter unmentionable thoughts. — Herman Melville · 1852
What a chimera then is man! What a novelty! What a monster, what a chaos, what a contradiction, what a prodigy! Judge of all things, feeble earth-worn, depository of truth, a sink of uncertainty and error, the glory and the shame of the universe. — Blaise Pascal · 1670
Stupidity1 quote
He's a muddle-headed fool, with frequent lucid intervals. — Miguel de Cervantes · 1615
Virtue1 quote
Virtue is choked with foul ambition. — William Shakespeare · 1594