Briefsbook Quotes & Sayings

In Ireland, there are the same fossils, the same shells and the same sea bodies, as appear in America, and some of them are found in no other part of Europe. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

Our standards of morality are begotten of the past needs of society, but is society to remain always the same? The observance of communal traditions involves a constant sacrifice of the individual to the state. Education, in order to keep up the mighty delusion, encourages a species of ignorance. People are not taught to be really virtuous, but to behave properly. We are wicked because we are frightfully self-conscious. We nurse a conscience because we are afraid to tell the truth to others; we take refuge in pride because we are afraid to tell the truth to ourselves. How can one be serious with the world when the world itself is so ridiculous! — Okakura Kakuzo

The BBC is a perfect example of uncontrolled growth, [occupying] old churches and manor houses, the old Langham Hotel where Sherlock Holmes once met Moriarty and where this correspondent once shared an office with an 8-foot bathtub. — Morley Safer

In a state therefore of great equality and virtue, where pure and simple manners prevailed, the increase of the human species would evidently be much greater than any increase that has been hitherto known. — Thomas Malthus

The emotional elevation of the film is due in no small measure to the extraordinarily engaging performances of Anne Bancroft as the wife-mother-mistress, Dustin Hoffman as the lumbering Lancelot, and Katherine Ross as his fair Elaine. — Andrew Sarris