I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means -- except by getting off his back.
-Leo Tolstoy, novelist and philosopher (9 Sep 1828-1910)
I am patient with stupidity but not with those who are proud of it.
-Edith Sitwell, poet (7 Sep 1887-1964)
The rightness of a thing isn't determined by the amount of courage it takes.
-Mary Renault, novelist (4 Sep 1905-1983)
Nothing is more terrible than ignorance in action.
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (28 Aug 1749-1832)
If an animal does something, they call it instinct. If we do exactly the same thing for the same reason, they call it intelligence.
-Will Cuppy, humorist and journalist (23 Aug 1884-1949)
Someone needs to explain to me why wanting clean drinking water makes you an activist and why proposing to destroy water with chemical warfare doesn't make a corporation a terrorist.
-Winona LaDuke, activist, environmentalist, economist, and writer (b. 18 Aug 1959)
You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.
-James Baldwin, writer (2 Aug 1924-1987)
What a child doesn't receive he can seldom later give.
-P.D. James (Phyllis Dorothy James), novelist (3 Aug 1920-2014)
The propagandist’s purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.
-Aldous Huxley, novelist (26 Jul 1894-1963)
Nothing limits intelligence more than ignorance; nothing fosters ignorance more than one's own opinions; nothing strengthens opinions more than refusing to look at reality.
-Sheri S. Tepper, novelist (16 Jul 1929-2016)
The truth is that every morning war is declared afresh. And the men who wish to continue it are as guilty as the men who began it, more guilty perhaps, for the latter perhaps did not foresee all its horrors.
-Marcel Proust, novelist (10 Jul 1871-1922)
In order for me to write poetry that isn't political / I must listen to the birds / and in order to hear the birds / the warplanes must be silent.
-Marwan Makhoul, poet (b. 2 Jul 1979)
The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.
-Harriet Beecher Stowe, abolitionist and novelist (14 Jun 1811-1896)
There is always something to do. There are hungry people to feed, nĪ±ked people to clothe, sick people to comfort and make well. And while I don’t expect you to save the world, I do think it’s not asking too much for you to love those with whom you sleep, share the happiness of those whom you call friend, engage those among you who are visionary, and remove from your life those who offer you depression, despair, and disrespect.
-Nikki Giovanni, poet and professor (7 Jun 1943-2024)
It is the people who scream the loudest about America and Freedom who seem to be the most intolerant for a differing point of view.
-Rosanne Cash, singer-songwriter and author (b. 24 May 1955)
I should dearly love that the world should be ever so little better for my presence. Even on this small stage we have our two sides, and something might be done by throwing all one's weight on the scale of breadth, tolerance, charity, temperance, peace, and kindliness to man and beast. We can't all strike very big blows, and even the little ones count for something.
-Arthur Conan Doyle, physician and writer (22 May 1859-1930)
The first step in a fascist movement is the combination under an energetic leader of a number of men who possess more than the average share of leisure, brutality, and stupidity. The next step is to fascinate fools and muzzle the intelligent, by emotional excitement on the one hand and terrorism on the other.
-Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, author, Nobel laureate (18 May 1872-1970)
How simple life becomes when things like mirrors are forgotten.
-Daphne du Maurier, novelist (13 May 1907-1989)
Neither genius, fame, nor love show the greatness of the soul. Only kindness can do that.
-Jean Baptiste Henri Lacordaire, preacher, journalist, and activist (12 May 1802-1861)
The higher up you go, the more mistakes you are allowed. Right at the top, if you make enough of them, it’s considered to be your style.
-Fred Astaire, dancer, actor, singer, musician, and choreographer (10 May 1899-1987)
