She set down her glass with a thump. “Or humankind. I’m afraid we’ve spent a lot of feminist energy on meaningless symbols rather than essential functions.”
Source: Gibbon's Decline & Fall (1996), Chapter 10, p. 170
Source: Gibbon's Decline & Fall (1996), Chapter 10 (p. 170)
Speech, quoted in The Times (February 15, 1923).
Other works
Variant: Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.
“There were no words
In any human tongue
To be left for mankind,
Mankind who live on.”
Rescue (1945)
Context: Someone will read as moral
That the people of Rome or Warsaw
Haggle, laugh, make love
As they pass by martyrs' pyres.
Someone else will read
Of the passing of things human,
Of the oblivion
Born before the flames have died. But that day I thought only
Of the loneliness of the dying,
Of how, when Giordano
Climbed to his burning
There were no words
In any human tongue
To be left for mankind,
Mankind who live on.
“For me the music is a vehicle for my lyrics. It's a chance to get some really good words across.”
As quoted in [Coon, Caroline, w:en:Caroline Coon, 1988: The New Wave Punk Rock Explosion, http://homepage.mac.com/blackmarketclash/Bands/Clash/Clash%20gigography/1976%20DATES.html, 2011-09-21, 1977, Hawthorn, London, 0801561299., 79262599, http://web.archive.org/20071026052834/homepage.mac.com/blackmarketclash/Bands/Clash/Clash%20gigography/1976%20DATES.html, 2007-10-26]
“There aren't any magical words, really. Words just hold the magic.”
Source: Grave Peril
“Maybe in order to understand mankind, we have to look at the word itself.”
Deeper Thoughts: All New, All Crispy (1993)
Context: Maybe in order to understand mankind, we have to look at the word itself. Basically, it's made up of two separate words — "mank" and "ind." What do these words mean? It's a mystery, and that's why so is mankind.
“I will remember this word," he said. "Shenanigans. It is a good word.”
Source: The Emperor of Nihon-Ja
