Quotes

Rita Levi-Montalcini photo

“Man is ruined by servility, conformism, obsequiousness, rather than aggressiveness, which is much more common in the environment than within ourselves.”

Rita Levi-Montalcini (1909–2012) Italian neurologist

Source: From the presentation Elogio dell'imperfezione (Garzanti, 1987), Liceo classico Massimo d'Azeglio, Torino; cited in Giovanni Berlinguer, Il leopardo in salotto, Editori Riuniti, 1990.

Muhammad al-Taqi photo

“Man's death by sins is more than his death by fate and his life by charity is more than his life by age.”

Muhammad al-Taqi (811–835) ninth of the Twelve Imams of Twelver Shi'ism

[Baqir Sharīf al-Qurashi, The life of Imam Muhammad al-Jawad, Wonderful Maxims and Arts, 2005]

Joseph Strutt photo
William L. Shirer photo

“What Wilson and Lloyd George failed to see was that the terms of peace which they were hammering out against the dogged resistance of Clemenceau and Foch, while seemingly severe enough, left Germany in the long run relatively stronger than before. Except for the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France in the west and the loss of some valuable industrialized frontier districts to the Poles, form whom the Germans had taken them originally, Germany remained virtually intact, greater in population and industrial capacity than France could ever be, and moreover with her cities, farms, and factories undamaged by the war, which had been fought in enemy lands. In terms of relative power in Europe, Germany's position was actually better in 1919 than in 1914, or would be as soon as the Allied victors carried out their promise to reduce their armaments to the level of the defeated. The collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire had not been the catastrophe for Germany that Bismarck had feared, because there was no Russian empire to take advantage of it. Russia, beset by revolution and civil war, was for the present, and perhaps would be for years to come, impotent. In the place of this powerful country on her eastern border Germany now had small, unstable states which could not seriously threaten her and which one day might easily be made to return former German territory and even made to disappear from the map.”

The Collapse of the Third Republic (1969)

Malorie Blackman photo
Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse photo
Edith Sitwell photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Harper Lee photo
John C. Maxwell photo

“It's better to prepare than to repair.”

John C. Maxwell (1947) American author, speaker and pastor

Source: The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork: Embrace Them and Empower Your Team

Dr. Seuss photo

“Shorth is better than length.”

Dr. Seuss (1904–1991) American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books

“There is no greater bore than perfection.”

Source: The Most Dangerous Game

Umberto Eco photo

“Love is wiser than wisdom.”

Umberto Eco (1932–2016) Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist

Source: The Name of the Rose (Everyman's Library

Edward O. Wilson photo
William Golding photo

“Worse than madness. Sanity.”

Source: Pincher Martin

Adam Levine photo

“Books are truer than movies.”

Adam Levine (1979) singer, songwriter, actor, and record producer from the United States

Source: The Instructions

David Levithan photo

“Make more than dust.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Two Boys Kissing

Francis Bacon photo

“The remedy is worse than the disease.”

Of Seditions and Troubles
Essays (1625)

Anne Lamott photo

“It's better to be kind than to be right.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist