quoto’s most recent Quotables

A hint—don't paint too much direct from nature. Art is an abstraction! study nature then brood on it and treasure the creation which will result, which is the only way to ascend towards God—to create like our Divine Master.

That kind of patriotism which consists in hating all other nations.

A man…is so in the way in the house!

The compact which exists between the North and the South is ‘a covenant with death and an agreement with hell’.

Our country is the world—our countrymen are all mankind.

I am in earnest—I will not equivocate—I will not excuse—I will not retreat a single inch—and I will be heard!

Heaven sends us good meat, but the Devil sends cooks.

Heart of oak are our ships,
Heart of oak are our men:
We always are ready;
Steady, boys, steady;
We'll fight and we'll conquer again and again.

The vice-presidency isn't worth a pitcher of warm piss.

Men, I'm getting out of Rome. Anyone who wants to carry on the war against the outsiders, come with me. I can offer you neither honours nor wages; I offer you hunger, thirst, forced marches, battles and death. Anyone who loves his country, follow me.

Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good.

Non-violence is the first article of my faith. It is also the last article of my creed.

The moment the slave resolves that he will no longer be a slave, his fetters fall. He frees himself and shows the way to others. Freedom and slavery are mental states.

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

I came in here in all good faith to help my country. I don't mind giving a reasonable amount [of blood], but a pint…why that's very nearly an armful.

A man of action forced into a state of thought is unhappy until he can get out of it.

I met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is that Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns.

Philosophy is written in that great book which ever lies before our eyes—I mean the universe…This book is written in mathematical language and its characters are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without whose help…one wanders in vain through a dark labyrinth.

The chief merit of language is clearness, and we know that nothing detracts so much from this as do unfamiliar terms.

Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.