War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war, is much worse. When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or...
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John Stuart Mill
For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is...
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George Orwell
I suppose therefore that all things I see are illusions; I believe that nothing has ever existed of everything my lying memory tells me. I think I have no senses. I believe that body, shape, extension, motion, location are functions. What is there then that...
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Unknown
I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who overcomes his enemies.
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Aristotle
The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest-Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence...
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John Stuart Mill
More Quotes By John Irving
It´s natural to want someone you love to do what you want, or what you think would be good for them, but you have to let everything happen to them. You can't interfere with people you love any more than you're supposed to interfere with...
If you care about something you have to protect it — If you’re lucky enough to find a way of life you love, you have to find the courage to live it.
My life is a reading list.
It is hard work and great art to make life not so serious.
It is your responsibility to find fault with me, it is mine to hear you out. But don't expect me to change.
