Still, it is a pity we no longer really notice that material world which we unthinkingly contemn. Much abominable talk about “the un-wholesome restlessness of modern life” is thus bred by our blindness to the fact that restlessness is pre-eminently a natural trait.
The fictional author John Charteris in James Branch Cabell’s Beyond Life: Dizaine des Démiurges (1919), Chapter V, “Which Considers the Reactionary,” §8.
Science is made up of so many things that appear obvious after they are explained.
Pardot Kynes, a character in Frank Herbert’s Dune (1965), Book Two: Muad’Dib.
To be loved, be lovable.
Publius Ovidius Naso (March 20, 43 BC – 17 AD), The Art of Love (2 AD), Book II, line 107.
Vice thrives and lives by concealment.
Publius Vergilius Maro (October 15, 70 BC – September 21, 19 BC), known in English as Virgil, Georgics, Book III, line 454.
Science should remain above politics, if it’s to do its job.
Nancy Kress, Probability Space (2002).
Ralph Waldo Emerson, “English Traits” (1856).
Solvency is maintained by means of a national debt, on the principle, ‘If you will not lend me the money, how can I pay you?’
You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man’s freedom. You can only be free if I am free.
Clarence Darrow, Address to the court in People v. Lloyd (1920).
If you really think that for some purposes we may rightly compel men, and for other purposes we may not, you are bound to arrange your perceptions on the subject and discover what is the dividing line between “the may” and “the may not.”
Auberon Herbert, The Right and Wrong of Compulsion by the State (1885).
To be totally frank, almost every conspiracy theory that people had about Twitter turned out to be true. Is there a conspiracy theory about Twitter that didn’t turn out to be true? So far they’ve all turned out to be true — if not more true than people thought
Elon Musk, quoted in “Watch: Elon Musk Reveals Most Shocking Thing About ‘Twitter Files,’ Makes Major Confession,” Western Journal (December 27, 2022).
It is better to risk sparing a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.
Voltaire, Zadig (1747).