David > David's Quotes

“We can state with conviction, therefore, that a man's support for absolute government is in direct proportion to the contempt he feels for his country.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville

“I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“One of the penalties of refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”
― Plato

“Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well.”
― Mark Twain

“Friendship ... is born at the moment when one man says to another "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . .”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“Go to heaven for the climate and hell for the company.”
― Benjamin Franklin Wade

“The difference between treason and patriotism is only a matter of dates.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“True, I have raped history, but it has produced some beautiful offspring.”
― Alexandre Dumas

“There is a much that a man should not see, should not know, and if he should see it, it is better for him to die.”
― Varlam Shalamov, Kolymskie rasskazy

“In politics, my dear fellow, you know, as well as I do, there are no men, but ideas — no feelings, but interests; in politics we do not kill a man, we only remove an obstacle, that is all.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“And I like large parties. They’re so intimate. At small parties there isn’t any privacy.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“Constitutions become the ultimate tyranny," Paul said. "They’re organized power on such a scale as to be overwhelming. The constitution is social power mobilized and it has no conscience. It can crush the highest and the lowest, removing all dignity and individuality. It has an unstable balance point and no limitations.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune Messiah

“Jane leaned back against the counter and stared at the ceiling. At the traditional location of God, no matter what the planet.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Betrayal

“Ignorance killed the cat; curiosity was framed!”
― C. J. Cherryh

“It is perfectly okay to write garbage--as long as you edit brilliantly.”
― C. J. Cherryh

“Enough or not...it will have to do”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“Tides are like politics. They come and go with a great deal of fuss and noise, but inevitably they leave the beach just as they found it. On those few occasions when major change does occur, it is rarely a good news.”
― Jack McDevitt, Deepsix

“We live along the shores of night,
At the edge of the eternal sea.”
― Jack McDevitt, Infinity Beach

“Show me what a people admire, and I will tell you everything about them that matters.”
― Jack McDevitt, The Engines of God

“Google can bring you back 100,000 answers. A librarian can bring you back the right one.”
― Neil Gaiman

“If you cannot read all your books, at any rate handle, or as it were, fondle them – peer into them, let them fall open where they will, read from the first sentence that arrests the eye, set them back on the shelves with your own hands, arrange them on your own plan so that if you do not know what is in them, you at least know where they are. Let them be your friends; let them at any rate be your acquaintances. If they cannot enter the circle of your life, do not deny them at least a nod of recognition.”
― Winston S. Churchill, Painting As a Pastime