"Men who prefer any load of infamy, however great, to any pressure of taxation, however light."

Sydney Smith Philosophy See all quotes by Sydney Smith →

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More by Sydney Smith

“My idea of heaven is, eating pâté de foie gras to the sound of trumpets.”

“When I hear any man talk of an unalterable law, the only effect it produces upon me is to convince me that he is an unalterable fool.”

“I am old, but I certainly have not that sign of old age, extolling the past at the expense of the present.”

“My living in Yorkshire was so far out of the way, that it was actually twelve miles from a lemon.”

“I look upon Switzerland as an inferior sort of Scotland.”

“Bishop Berkeley destroyed this world in one volume octavo; and nothing remained after his time, but mind — which experienced a similar fate from the hand of Mr. Hume, in 1737.”

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"It is no objection to shooting arrows or other missiles against the infidels that there may chance to be among them a Muslim in the way either of bondage or of traffic, because the shooting of arrows …"

— Burhan al-Din al-Marghinani

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Technology1965–2009

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"A man emaciated by a grave illness is at first treated by doctors gradually. Food is administered to him in small doses. If more is administered to the patient, it might kill him. And so we want to be…"

— Nikita Khrushchev

Politics1959–2007

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