QOTD category archive

Arnold J. Toynbee:

The human race’s prospects of survival were considerably better when we were defenceless against tigers than they are today when we have become defenceless against ourselves.

Geraldine Brooks:

We are not the only animal that mourns; apes do, and elephants, and dogs. Yet we are the only one that tortures.

Martin Rees:

When I discover I’m wrong, I change my mind. What do you do?

Kerry Greenwood:

Phryne had no use for guilt. It prevented sensible action.

Greenwood, Kerry, Queen of the Flowers (Scottsdale, AZ: Poisoned Pen Press, 2008), p. 150.

Antistehenes:

The most useful piece of learning for the uses of life is to unlearn what is untrue.

David Garrick:

Corrupted freemen are the worst of slaves.

John Locke:

I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts

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Len Deighton:

When old men decided to barter young men for pride and profit, the transaction was called war.

Kerry Greenwood:

She prized small courtesies, because they were the only ones she ever received.

Greenwood, Kerry, Queen of the Fairies (Scottsdale, AZ: Poisoned Pen Press, 2008), p. 14.

Peter Bergen:

The dirty little secret of the intelligence world is that much of what you really need to know isn’t exactly a secret anyway.

Hwnning Mankell:

My father thought, and now I think too, that the system of democracy is entirely based upon the system of justice. If we do not have a system of justice that people believe in, the system of democracy will fail.

Stanley Kubrick:

I don’t like doing interviews. There is always the problem of being misquoted or, what’s even worse, of being quoted exactly.

Serge Daney:

In an age of synthetic images and synthetic emotions, the chances of an accidental encounter with reality are remote indeed.

Martin Sheen:

I learned I had to stand for something so I could stand to be me.

Friedrich Nietzsche:

Insanity in individuals is something rare – but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.

Bill Shade, my history professor for the Early Federal Period when I was in grad school, was fond of saying that “history is irony.”

Ironically, Niectzshe went insane towards the end of his life.*

But that doesn’t mean he was insane when he wrote this.

______________

*The program at the link is currently available on Netflix and is well worth your while.

Eric Edmeades:

The microphone is mightier than the pen.

Aside:

Sadly, I feel he is proven correct every day.

Owen Jones:

A party committed to defending the economic interests of rich elites could never win by saying so.

Ben Elton:

Lies are as important as truth, for without lies, the truth is worthless.

Joseph Epstein:

Of the seven deadly sins, only envy is no fun at all.

Kerry Greenwood:

Cec: He must be like that bloke on the radio, the Shadow, that has the power to cloud men’s minds.

Miss Eliza: Not a lot of power needed there.

Greenwood, Kerry, Murder in the Dark (Scottsdale, AZ: Poisoned Pen Press, 2009), p. 174