The words of truth are simple.
—Aeschylus
The words of truth are simple.
—Aeschylus
You cannot be sure that you are right unless you understand the arguments against your views better than your opponents do.
—Milton Friedman
Remember, though, your best weapon is between your ears and under your scalp—provided it’s loaded.
—Robert Heinlein
Animi labes nec diuturnitate vanescere nec omnibus ullis elui potest. Mental stains can not be removed by time, nor washed away by any waters.
—Marcus Tullius Cicero
When we lie to ourselves, and believe our own lies, we become unable to recognize truth, either in ourselves or anyone else, and we end up losing respect for ourselves and others. When we have no respect for anyone, we can no longer love, and in order to divert ourselves, having no love in us, we yield to our impulses, indulge in the lowest forms of pleasure, and behave in the end like an animal, in satisfying our vices. And it all comes from lying—lying to ourselves and others.
—Fyodor Dostoevsky
What real power can buy, of course, is anonymity.
—Samuel R. Delany
Das erste und letzte, was vom Genie gefordert wird, ist Wahrheits-Liebe. The first and last thing demanded of genius is love of truth.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
One of the annoying things about believing in free will and individual responsibility is the difficulty of finding somebody to blame your problems on. And when you do find somebody, it’s remarkable how often his picture turns up on your driver’s license.
—P. J. O’Rourke
It is wrong to assume that men of immense wealth are always happy.
—John D. Rockefeller
ὅσῳ κράτιστον κτημάτων εὐβουλία. Wisdom outweighs any wealth.
—Sophocles
A wicked person listens to deceitful lips;
a liar pays attention to a destructive tongue.
—Proverbs 17:4
A close mouth catches nae flees.
—Scottish Proverb
You can’t hold two watermelons in one hand.
—Afghan Proverb
Ubi explorari vera non possunt, falsa per metum augentur. When the truth cannot be clearly made out, what is false is increased through fear.
—Quintus Curtius Rufus
Authorities said … best leave it … unsolved.
—Nigel Tufnel
A pleasure is full grown only when it is remembered.
—C. S. Lewis
Ah well, perhaps one has to be very old before one learns how to be amused rather than shocked.
—Pearl S. Buck
Старая штука смерть, а каждому внове. Death is an old thing, but it comes like new to everyone.
—Ivan Turgenev
A good line from Kevin Williamson: “People who are high achievers in one field mistakenly believe that they possess a kind of generalized cleverness applicable to other areas of endeavor — call it Krugman’s Fallacy.” (H/T, Jim Geraghty)
Wisdom is a curse when wisdom does nothing for the man who has it.
—Sophocles
The battles that count aren’t the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself—the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us—that’s where it’s at.
—Jesse Owens
A crow will never be a falcon.
—Ukrainian Proverb
It’s a good thing to turn your mind upside down now and then, like an hour-glass, to let the particles run the other way.
—Christopher Morley
Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called conscience.
—George Washington
Words must be weighed, not counted.
—Polish Proverb