"History is little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind."

Gibbon, Edward on history and historians
4 fans of this quote   

"Periods of tranquillity are seldom prolific of creative achievement. Mankind has to be stirred up."

Whitehead, Alfred North on action   

"I have offended God and mankind because my work didn't reach the quality it should have."

Da Vinci, Leonardo on excellence
6 fans of this quote   

"For once you must try not to shirk the facts: mankind is kept alive by bestial acts."

Brecht, Bertolt on sex
7 fans of this quote   

"Mankind has a free will; but it is free to milk cows and to build houses, nothing more."

Luther, Martin on freedom   

"Some of mankind's most terrible misdeeds have been committed under the spell of certain magic words or phrases."

Conant, James B. on propaganda
3 fans of this quote   

"To a superior race of being the pretensions of mankind to extraordinary sanctity and virtue must seem... ridiculous."

Hazlitt, William on virtue   

"He knows very little of mankind who expects, by any facts or reasoning, to convince a determined party man."

Lavater, Johann Kaspar on politics   

"Mankind which began in a cave and behind a windbreak will end in the disease-soaked ruins of a slum. "

Wells, H.G. on uncategorised   

"That is the consolation of a little mind; you have the fun of changing it without impeding the progress of mankind."

Colby, Frank Moore on modesty   

"Night's deepest gloom is but a calm; that soothes the weary mind: The labored days restoring balm; the comfort of mankind."

Hunt, Leigh on night   

"Take not from the mouth of labor the bread it as earned."

Jefferson, Thomas on labor   

"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground."

Jefferson, Thomas on liberty
3 fans of this quote   

"Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital."

Jefferson, Thomas on books - reading   

"The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do."

Jefferson, Thomas on brevity
8 fans of this quote   

"It is part of the American character to consider nothing as desperate -- to surmount every difficulty by resolution and contrivance."

Jefferson, Thomas on character   

"Taste cannot be controlled by law."

Jefferson, Thomas on taste   

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"For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead..."

Jefferson, Thomas on truth
3 fans of this quote   

"The man who fears no truth has nothing to fear from lies."

Jefferson, Thomas on truth
3 fans of this quote   

"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."

Jefferson, Thomas on vigilance
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"A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high virtues of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation."

Jefferson, Thomas on citizenship   

"Nothing gives a person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances."

Jefferson, Thomas on control
7 fans of this quote   

"If, in my retirement to the humble station of a private citizen, I am accompanied with the esteem and approbation of my fellow citizens, trophies obtained by the bloodstained steel, or the tattered flags of the tented field, will never be envied. The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government. "

Jefferson, Thomas on uncategorised
3 fans of this quote   

"If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy. "

Jefferson, Thomas on uncategorised   

"Were we directed from Washington when to sow, & when to reap, we should soon want bread. "

Jefferson, Thomas on uncategorised   

"I confess I have the same fears for our South American brethren; the qualifications for self-government in society are not innate. They are the result of habit and long training, and for these they will require time and probably much suffering. "

Jefferson, Thomas on uncategorised   

"To preserve the freedom of the human mind and freedom of the press, every spirit should be ready to devote itself to martyrdom; for as long as we may think as we will, and speak as we think the condition of man will proceed in improvement. The generation which is going off the stage has deserved well of mankind for the struggles it has made, and for having arrested the course of despotism which had overwhelmed the world for thousands and thousands of years. If there seems to be danger that the ground they have gained will be lost again, that danger comes from the generation your contemporary. But that the enthusiasm which characterizes youth should lift its parricide hands against freedom and science would be such a monstrous phenomenon as I cannot place among possible things in this age and country. "

Jefferson, Thomas on uncategorised   

"We confide in our strength, without boasting of it; we respect that of others, without fearing it."

Jefferson, Thomas on strength
5 fans of this quote   

"When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property."

Jefferson, Thomas on politics   

"No man will ever bring out of the Presidency the reputation which carries him into it."

Jefferson, Thomas on president   

"It is the trade of lawyers to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour."

Jefferson, Thomas on law and lawyers
3 fans of this quote   

"Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty."

Jefferson, Thomas on liberty
4 fans of this quote   

"An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry."

Jefferson, Thomas on argument   

"I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it."

Jefferson, Thomas on luck
5 fans of this quote   

"Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you, and act accordingly."

Jefferson, Thomas on morality
6 fans of this quote   

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"A little rebellion now and then... is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."

Jefferson, Thomas on medicine
6 fans of this quote   

"What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."

Jefferson, Thomas on art
4 fans of this quote   

"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing, but newspapers."

Jefferson, Thomas on newspapers
6 fans of this quote   

"The advertisements are the most truthful part of a newspaper."

Jefferson, Thomas on newspapers
4 fans of this quote   

"The art of life is the art of avoiding pain; and he is the best pilot, who steers clearest of the rocks and shoals with which it is beset."

Jefferson, Thomas on pain
8 fans of this quote   

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