Famous Quotes & Sayings

Ludwig von Mises

The philosophy underlying the system of progressive taxation is that the income and wealth of the well-to-do classes can be freely tapped. What the advocates of these tax rates fail to realize is that the greater part of the incomes taxed away would not have been consumed but saved and invested.

Charles Peguy

A great philosophy is not one that passes final judgments and establishes ultimate truth. It is one that causes uneasiness and starts commotion.

Charles Peguy

A great philosophy is not a philosophy without reproach; it is philosophy without fear.

Denis Diderot

Passions destroy more prejudices than philosophy does.

Denis Diderot

The first step towards philosophy is incredulity.

Denis Diderot

What has not been examined impartially has not been well examined. Skepticism is therefore the first step towards truth.

Denis Diderot

Philosophy is as far separated from impiety as religion is from fanaticism.

Denis Diderot

Skepticism is the first step on the road to philosophy.

Dean Wareham

They didn't teach Nietzsche in the philosophy department at Harvard; philosophy there was strictly analytical stuff and the poetic ramblings of Nietzsche did not belong. And see - you are teaching it in a literature class - so they must have been right.

Edgar Allan Poe

It is with literature as with law or empire - an established name is an estate in tenure, or a throne in possession.

Edgar Allan Poe

Literature is the most noble of professions. In fact, it is about the only one fit for a man.

Edgar Allan Poe

A poem deserves its title only inasmuch as it excites, by elevating the soul.

Edgar Allan Poe

Science has not yet taught us if madness is or is not the sublimity of the intelligence.

Edgar Allan Poe

Music, when combined with a pleasurable idea, is poetry; music, without the idea, is simply music; the idea, without the music, is prose, from its very definitiveness.

Edgar Allan Poe

To observe attentively is to remember distinctly.

David J. C. MacKay

We can't be anti-everything - we need an energy plan that adds up. But there's a lack of numeracy in the public discussion of energy. Where people do use numbers, they select them to sound big and score points in arguments, rather than to aid thoughtful discussion.

Abdu'l Baha

Let them at all times concern themselves with doing a kindly thing for one of their fellows, offering to someone love, consideration, thoughtful help.

David Quammen

Whether you like the label 'Anthropocene' or not, whether you find the prospect of what it signifies inevitable or appalling (or both), the time has come to address its implications, as these thoughtful, battle-tested authors attempt to do. The time has long since come.

Isabella Rossellini

It always amazed me that people believed I was this beautiful object.

Isabella Rossellini

I'm always a little worried when people have met me in person because I'm worried they'll be disappointed.

Rick Perlstein

Do people still read before bed? I play 'Words With Friends.'

Robert Mankoff

People often ask me about my upbringing, and if there was anything particular about it that made me become a cartoonist.

Robert Mankoff

I don't think most people know what's going to be in their obituary, but I do.

Robert Teeter

There are not enough people out talking about the President positively.

Roger Penrose

Some people take the view that we happen by accident. I think that there is something much deeper, of which we have very little inkling at the moment.

Kristy Swanson

My parents were like the kind of people who read the 'Enquirer' and believed everything it said.

Malorie Blackman

I think what we need, especially in publishing, is more commissioning editors and editors who are people of colour.