"A country cannot subsist well without liberty, nor liberty without virtue."

Rousseau, Jean Jacques on freedom   

"The first step towards vice is to shroud innocent actions in mystery, and whoever likes to conceal something sooner or later has reason to conceal it."

Rousseau, Jean Jacques on secrets   

"Who is sure of their own motives can in confidence advance or retreat."

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von on motivation   

"Surely all art is the result of one's having been in danger, of having gone through an experience all the way to the end, where no one can go any further."

Rilke, Rainer Maria on art   

"Art is man's expression of his joy in labor."

Morris, William on art   

"Art raises its head where creeds relax."

Nietzsche, Friedrich on art
3 fans of this quote   

"The word Christianity is already a misunderstanding -- in reality there has been only one Christian, and he died on the Cross."

Nietzsche, Friedrich on jesus christ
15 fans of this quote   

"Only sick music makes money today."

Nietzsche, Friedrich on music
4 fans of this quote   

"Art is long, life short, judgment difficult, opportunity transient."

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von on art
3 fans of this quote   

"People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them Benjamin Franklin said it first."

Comins, David H on ideas
4 fans of this quote   

"Ideas lose themselves as quickly as quail, and one must wing them the minute they rise out of the grass, or they are gone."

Kennedy, Thomas F. on ideas   

"We are prisoners of ideas."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on ideas   

"Wise men are not wise at all hours, and will speak five times from their taste or their humor, to once from their reason."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on contradiction
4 fans of this quote   

"Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth."

Pascal, Blaise on contradiction
4 fans of this quote   

"Desire and force between them are responsible for all our actions; desire causes our voluntary acts, force our involuntary."

Pascal, Blaise on desire
4 fans of this quote   

"The hero draws inspiration from the virtue of his ancestors."

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von on heroes and heroism
6 fans of this quote   

"Don't play what's there, play what's not there."

Davis, Miles on music
4 fans of this quote   

"Do not fear mistakes -- there are none."

Davis, Miles on mistakes
6 fans of this quote   

"It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness and of pain: of strength and freedom. The beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love. The cruel beauty of nature, and everlasting beauty of monotony."

Britten, Benjamin on music
4 fans of this quote   

"For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity or perception to exist, a certain physiological precondition is indispensable: intoxication."

Nietzsche, Friedrich on alcohol and alcoholism
8 fans of this quote   

"Most of the time in married life is taken up by talk."

Nietzsche, Friedrich on speakers and speaking   

"No man lies so boldly as the man who is indignant."

Nietzsche, Friedrich on lies and lying
3 fans of this quote   

"In every ascetic morality man worships a part of himself as God and for that he needs to diabolize the other part."

Nietzsche, Friedrich on asceticism   

"There are no facts, only interpretations."

Nietzsche, Friedrich on facts
21 fans of this quote   

"These people abstain, it is true: but the bitch Sensuality glares enviously out of all they do."

Nietzsche, Friedrich on chastity
4 fans of this quote   

"Many people profess Christianity. Very few live it-almost none. And when you live it people may think you're crazy. It has been truthfully said that the world is equally shocked by one who repudiates Christianity as by one who practices it."

Pilgrim, Peace on christians and christianity
5 fans of this quote   

"Christianity makes suffering contagious."

Nietzsche, Friedrich on christians and christianity
5 fans of this quote   

"The doctrine of equality! There exists no more poisonous poison: for it seems to be preached by justice itself, while it is the end of justice."

Nietzsche, Friedrich on equality
6 fans of this quote   

"Mathematics would certainly have not come into existence if one had known from the beginning that there was in nature no exactly straight line, no actual circle, no absolute magnitude."

Nietzsche, Friedrich on mathematics
4 fans of this quote   

"A good composer does not imitate; he steals."

Stravinsky, Igor on music   

"Today, music heralds... the establishment of a society of repetition in which nothing will happen anymore."

Attali, Jacques on music   

"Rock 'n Roll is monotony tinged with hysteria."

Packard, Vance on music   

"That which does not kill us makes us stronger."

Nietzsche, Friedrich on strength
13 fans of this quote   

"Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm."

Lincoln, Abraham on control
3 fans of this quote   

"What is grand is necessarily obscure to weak men. That which can be made explicit to the idiot is not worth my care."

Blake, William on obscurity
3 fans of this quote   

"Obscurity brings safety."

Aesop on obscurity
4 fans of this quote   

"Obscurity is the realm of error."

Vauvenargues, Marquis De on obscurity   

"Sometimes it helps to know that I just can't do it all. One step at a time is all that's possible -- even when those steps are taken on the run."

Schaef, Anne W. on patience
4 fans of this quote   

"It is in the interests of our society to promote those things that take the edge off, keep us busy with our fixes, and keep us slightly numbed out and zombie like. In this way our modern consumer society itself functions as an addict."

Schaef, Anne W. on drugs   

"Perfect freedom is as necessary to the health and vigor of commerce as it is to the health and vigor of citizenship."

Henry, Patrick on freedom