I do myself up kind of like a doll. I have a doll collection and I look at their outfits and kind of imitate them.
I darted a contemptuous look at the stately models of superstition.
I never make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinions I have no respect.
The decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the cause of the destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest; and, as soon as time or accident and removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight. The story of the ruin is simple and obvious: and instead of inquiring why the Roman Empire was destroyed we should rather be surprised that it has subsisted for so long.
In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all – security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.
A nation ignorant of the equal benefits of liberty and law, must be awed by the flashes of arbitrary power: the cruelty of a despot will assume the character of justice; his profusion, of liberality; his obstinacy, of firmness.
[Whole] generations may be swept away by the madness of kings in the space of a single hour.
All we see of someone at any moment is a snapshot of their life, there in riches or poverty, in joy or despair. Snapshots don't show the million decisions that led to that moment.
Cats and ghosts both partook of the saucers of milk and that was okay. They consumed different parts of it: the cats its substance, the ghosts its essence, and none went to waste.
Of course building a kitchen makes all the symmetric sense in the world because everybody's burning calories at 120 beats a minute. You could even register it on a graph at the DJ booth. "How fast are they burning calories, sir?" "126 a minute. " "Are you sure?" "Oh, I'm very sure. " You can meter that out.
Principles are what people have instead of God.