Quotes

“The world has become too dangerous for anything less than utopias.”

John R. Platt (1918–1992) American physicist

John R. Piatt (1969) in: New York Times, September 2, 1969.

George Herbert photo

“677. Dry bread at home is better than rost meate abroad.”

George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest

Jacula Prudentum (1651)

Tulsidas photo

“No virtue is equal to the good of others and
no vice greater than hurting others.”

Tulsidas (1532–1623) Hindu poet-saint

Tulsidas in "A Garden of Deeds: Ramacharitmanas, a Message of Human Ethics", p. 37

“The term “leadership” connotes critical experience rather than routine practice.”

Philip Selznick (1919–2010) American sociologist

Source: Leadership in Administration: A Sociological Interpretation, 1957, p. 48

John of St. Samson photo

“It is much more trying to be continually tormented by evil men than by devils.”

John of St. Samson (1571–1636)

From, Light on Carmel: An Anthology from the Works of Brother John of Saint Samson, O.Carm.

Albert Einstein photo

“That is simple, my friend. It is because Politics is more difficult than physics.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Einstein when asked "Dr. Einstein, why is it that when the mind of man has stretched so far as to discover the structure of the atom we have been unable to devise the political means to keep the atom from destroying us?” a conferee at a meeting at Princeton, N.J. (Jan 1946), as recalled by Greenville Clark in "Letters to the Times" in New York Times (22 Apr 1955), 24
1940s
Variant: That is simple, my friend. It is because Politics is more difficult than physics.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe photo

“America, you have it better than our continent, the old one.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician

Amerika, du hast es besser—als unser Kontinent, der alte.
Wendts Musen-Almanach (1831)

Giovanni Boccaccio photo

“Wrongs committed in the distant past are far easier to condemn than to rectify.”

Le cose mal fatte e di gran tempo passate son più agevoli a riprendere che ad emendare.
Second Day, Fifth Story
The Decameron (c. 1350)

Neil Gaiman photo

“There was reality and there was reality; and some things were more real than others.”

Source: Anansi Boys (2005), Ch. 9

“The beauty of behaviour consists in the manner more than the matter of your discourse.”

James Burgh (1714–1775) British politician

The Dignity of Human Nature (1754)

Pete Seeger photo

“I'd really rather put songs on people's lips than in their ears.”

Pete Seeger (1919–2014) American folk singer

1994 interview, quoted in Filene Romancing the Folk: Public Memory & American Roots Music (2000), p. 197

Ian Holloway photo

“I'd rather do that than build chicken sheds no-one wanted!”

Ian Holloway (1963) English association football player and manager

On Blackpool making the Championship play-off final in 2010 having spent a year out of football making hen houses.
Sport Quotes of the Week, Charles, Chris, 2010-05-12, BBC Sport, 2010-05-22, Quotez http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/chrischarles/2010/05/quotes_of_the_week_24.html,
Sourced quotes

Bertrand Russell photo

“Most people, at a crisis, feel more loyalty to their nation than to their class.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: 1930s, Power: A New Social Analysis (1938), Ch. 8: Economic Power

“No honest man needs more than 10 rounds in any gun.”

William B. Ruger (1916–2002) American inventor

Ruger to Tom Brokaw of NBC News in 1992. ([Fully Loaded: Inside the Shadowy World of America’s 10 Biggest Gunmakers, Josh, Harkinson, June 14, 2016, May 31, 2018, Mother Jones, https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/06/fully-loaded-ten-biggest-gun-manufacturers-america/]; [Magazine limits were first proposed by Connecticut gun maker, Connecticut Magazine, New Haven Register, April 1, 2013, June 6, 2018, https://www.nhregister.com/connecticut/article/Magazine-limits-were-first-proposed-by-11435654.php]).

Marguerite de Navarre photo

“Some there are who are much more ashamed of confessing a sin than of committing it.”

Sixth Day, Novel LX (trans. W. K. Kelly)
L'Heptaméron (1558)

Emil M. Cioran photo

“Music is everything. God himself is nothing more than an acoustic hallucination.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

Tears and Saints (1937)

Michel De Montaigne photo

“Fashion is the science of appearances, and it inspires one with the desire to seem rather than to be.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

Attributed

Franz Kafka photo

“Even that has its reason; it is often better to be in chains than to be free.”

Source: The Trial (1920), Ch. 8

Michael Parenti photo

“There is a century-old saying, "The dollar votes more times than the man."”

Michael Parenti (1933) American academic

Source: Democracy for the Few (2010 [1974]), sixth edition, Chapter 13, p. 222

Anna Sui photo

“I think a dream can take you farther than anything.”

Anna Sui (1964) American fashion designer

CNN Interview (July 31, 2004)