Let a fool hold his tongue and he will pass for a sage.
Publilius Syrus, from the Sententiae. Image from the movie “Being There” (1979), from the novel by Jerzy Kosinski.
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Publilius Syrus
Category: Thought
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George Santayana
The world is a perpetual caricature of itself; at every moment it is the mockery and the contradiction of what it is pretending to be.
George Santayana, “Dickens,” Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies (1922).
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Mervyn Peake
Other people’s faults can be fascinating. One’s own are dreary.
Mervyn Peake, Gormenghast (1950), Chapter 48.
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George Santayana
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
George Santayana, “Tipperary,” Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies (1922).
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Eric Hoffer
Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (1951), pp. 10 – 11.
For though ours is a godless age, it is the very opposite of irreligious. The true believer is everywhere on the march, and both by converting and antagonizing he is shaping the world in his own image.
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Fernando Pessoa
Each civilization follows the path of a particular religion that represents it; turning to other religions, it loses the one it had, and ultimately loses them all.
Fernando Pessoa (1888 – 1935), The Book of Disquiet (Livro do Desassossego: Composto por Bernardo Soares, ajudante de guarda-livros na cidade de Lisboa; translated by Richard Zenith based on the 1998 Assírio & Alvim edition, edited by Richard Zenith), §306.