Quotes

Anacreon photo

“Nature gave horns to the bull,
Hoofs gave she to the horse.
To the lion cavernous jaws,
And swiftness to the hare.
The fish taught she to swim,
The bird to cleave the air;
To man she reason gave;
Not yet was woman dowered.
What, then, to woman gave she?
The priceless gift of beauty.
Stronger than any buckler,
Than any spear more piercing.
Who hath the gift of beauty.
Nor fire nor steel shall harm her.”

Anacreon (-570–-485 BC) Greek lyric poet, notable for his drinking songs and hymns

Odes, XXIV.
Variant: The bull by nature hath his horns, The horse his hoofs, to daunt their foes; The light-foot hare the hunter scorns; The lion's teeth his strength disclose.The fish, by swimming, 'scapes the weel; The bird, by flight, the fowler's net; With wisdom man is arm'd as steel; Poor women none of these can get. What have they then?—fair Beauty's grace, A two-edged sword, a trusty shield; No force resists a lovely face, Both fire and sword to Beauty yield.

Bruce Lee photo
Bob Marley photo
Paulo Coelho photo
Richard Francis Burton photo

“There is no God, no man-made God; a bigger, stronger, crueller man;
Black phantom of our baby-fears, ere Thought, the life of Life, began.”

Richard Francis Burton (1821–1890) British explorer, geographer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, cartographer, ethnologist, spy, lin…

The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870)

“All those things that make a nation richer, stronger, or more happy; or that tend to exalt national character, but that will not pay individuals, deserve public encouragement.”

William Playfair (1758–1824) British mathematician, engineer and political economist

Observations on the Greenland Trade, Chart XVIII, page 78.
The Commercial and Political Atlas, 3rd Edition

“Two opposing world-views — the technological and the traditional — coexisted in uneasy tension. The technological was the stronger, of course, but the traditional was there — still functional, still exerting influence…”

Neil Postman (1931–2003) American writer and academic

Technopoly: the Surrender of Culture to Technology (1992)
Context: Two opposing world-views — the technological and the traditional — coexisted in uneasy tension. The technological was the stronger, of course, but the traditional was there — still functional, still exerting influence... This is what we find documented not only in Mark Twain but in the poetry of Walt Whitman, the speeches of Abraham Lincoln, the prose of Thoreau, the philosophy of Emerson, the novels of Hawthorne and Melville, and, most vividly of all, in Alexis de Tocqueville's monumental Democracy in America. In a word, two distinct thought-worlds were rubbing against each other in nineteenth-century America.

Keanu Reeves photo
Nassim Nicholas Taleb photo

“Missing a train is only painful if you run after it! Likewise, not matching the idea of success others expect from you is only painful if that’s what you are seeking.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb (1960) Lebanese-American essayist, scholar, statistician, former trader and risk analyst

Source: The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

Sue Monk Kidd photo
Mikha'il Na'ima photo
George William Russell photo

“Ah, sigh for us whose hearts unseeing
Point all their passionate love in vain,
And blinded in the joy of being,
Meet only when pain touches pain.”

George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter

By Still Waters (1906)

Morarji Desai photo

“If we do not want to be pained by anybody we must not pain anybody; and how can man consider himself humane if he wants to live at the cost of others.”

Morarji Desai (1896–1995) Former Indian Finance Minister, Freedom Fighters, Former prime minister

19th World Vegetarian Congress 1967

Teal Swan photo
David Haye photo

“I think that [as a vegan] I’m now fitter than I've ever been. I punch harder than ever. I’m more determined. I’m faster. … Diet’s the biggest thing, because your body is a machine.”

David Haye (1980) British boxer

“David Haye: Going vegan made me stronger than I've ever been,” in Telegraph.co.uk (6 May 2016) https://web.archive.org/web/20180110175026/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/body/david-haye-going-vegan-made-stronger-than-ive-ever-been/.

James P. Cannon photo