"This rapacity, yes, powers, our Progress; for ends infernal or divine I know not. Nor do you know, sir. Nor do I overly care. I feel only gratitude that my Maker cast me on the winning side."

David Mitchell (author)Literature See all quotes by David Mitchell (author) →

React to this quote

More by David Mitchell (author)

“How lazily "xperts" dismiss what they fail to understand.”

“Lunatics are writers whose works write them.”

“Diplomacy… mops up war’s spillages; legitimizes its outcomes; gives the strong state the means to impose its will on a weaker one, while saving its fleets and battalions for weightier opponents.”

“The body is the outermost layer of the mind.”

“Science devises ever bloodier means of war until humanity’s powers of destruction overcome our powers of creation and our civilisation drives itself to extinction.”

“The most malicious god is the god of the counted chicken.”

Resonant Thoughts

"The only guarantee of the Bill of Rights which continues to have any force and effect is the one prohibiting quartering troops on citizens in time of peace. All the rest have been disposed of by judic…"

— H. L. Mencken

Literature1880–1956

#knowledge

"Paint studies of parts, for instance a piece of land, a group of trees or things like that, but always in a way that people can understand these things in relation with the whole landscape, by adding …"

— Willem Roelofs

Art1822–1897

#knowledge

"Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known. I am inclined to say that it is the only real mode of individualism that the world has known. Crime, which, under certain condit…"

— Oscar Wilde

Literature1854–1900

#knowledge

"Jesus Christ is personally unknown to the vast masses of men on all continents. His influence is limited by the failure and indifference of his professed followers."

— Kirby Page

Politics1890–1957

#knowledge