Argument Quotes

"I don't think necessity is the mother of invention. Invention, in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness - to save oneself trouble."

"It is not in giving life but in risking life that man is raised above the animal; that is why superiority has been accorded in humanity not to the sex that brings forth but to that which kills."

"Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has a right to, but himself."

"It has always seemed strange to me... the things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second."

"By rendering the labor of one, the property of the other, they cherish pride, luxury, and vanity on one side; on the other, vice and servility, or hatred and revolt."

"A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce, or a tragedy, or perhaps both."

"A dwarf who brings a standard along with him to measure his own size, take my word, is a dwarf in more articles than one."

"After great pain, a formal feeling comes. The Nerves sit ceremonious, like tombs."

"The place where you made your stand never mattered. Only that you were there... and still on your feet."

"Great men are seldom over-scrupulous in the arrangement of their attire."

"Although a skillful flatterer is a most delightful companion if you have him all to yourself, his taste becomes very doubtful when he takes to complimenting other people."

"It is not wisdom but Authority that makes a law."

"A man can be destroyed but not defeated."

"A civilization which leaves so large a number of its participants unsatisfied and drives them into revolt neither has nor deserves the prospect of a lasting existence."

"An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why must the pessimist always run to blow it out?"

"General benevolence, but not general friendship, made a man what he ought to be."

"An engaged woman is always more agreeable than a disengaged. She is satisfied with herself. Her cares are over, and she feels that she may exert all her powers of pleasing without suspicion. All is safe with a lady engaged; no harm can be done."

"Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars."

"He that rebels against reason is a real rebel, but he that in defence of reason rebels against tyranny has a better title to Defender of the Faith, than George the Third."

"Acting is a question of absorbing other people's personalities and adding some of your own experience."