"The possession of unlimited power will make a despot of almost any man. There is a possible Nero in the gentlest human creature that walks."

Thomas Bailey Aldrich Literature See all quotes by Thomas Bailey Aldrich →

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More by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

“True art selects and paraphrases, but seldom gives a verbatim translation.”

“All the best sands of my life are somehow getting into the wrong end of the hour-glass. If I could only reverse it! Were it in my power to do so, would I?”

“It is the Lord's Day, and I do believe that cheerful hearts and faces are not unpleasant in His sight.”

“Conservatism and respectability have their values, certainly; but has not the unconventional its values also?”

“O harp of life, so speedily unstrung!”

“Dialect tempered with slang is an admirable medium of communication between persons who have nothing to say and persons who would not care for anything properly said.”

Resonant Thoughts

"As will so often be the case when a men has a pen in his hand. It is like a club or sledge-hammer, — in using which, either for defence or attack, a man can hardly measure the strength of the blows he…"

— Anthony Trollope

Politics1815–1882

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"What is it that separates human beings from the so called lower animals? Well as I see it, it's exactly one half dozen significant things: Humor, Imagination, Eroticism — as opposed to the mindless, i…"

— Tom Robbins

Literature1932–2025

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"If we enjoy the benefits of peace, it is only because we have an excellent armed force and a fine socialist economy. Let us exert all efforts so that our further development may be strong and mighty, …"

— Kliment Voroshilov

Politics1924–1953

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"Some students are concerned over the organised effort to legalise euthanasia, and wonder about the placing of power of life and death in the hands of the physician. At the same time, they are aware th…"

— Alice Bailey

Literature1880–1949

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