Marquard Quotes & Sayings

In many walks of life, a conscience is a more expensive encumbrance than a wife or a carriage. — Thomas De Quincey

Growing up, we had 30, 40, 50 people coming through the house some Thanksgivings. Sometimes there was a kids' table; other times, the plate was just sitting on your lap. You get in where you fit in at that house. — Michael Strahan

The war against illegal file-sharing is like the church's age-old war against masturbation. It's a war you just can't win. — Lawrence Lessig

To the ends of the earth, madam, to say nothing of back and forth in this garden. — Caroline Linden

The philosopher Odo Marquard has noted a correlation in the German language between the word zwei, which means 'two,' and the word zweifel, which means 'doubt' - suggesting that two of anything brings the automatic possibility of uncertainty to our lives. Now imagine a life in which every day a person is presented with not two or even three but dozens of choices, and you can begin to grasp why the modern world has become, even with all its advantages, a neurosis-generating machine of the highest order. In a world of such abundant possibility, many of us simply go limp from indecision. Or we derail our life's journey again and again, backing up to try the doors we neglected on the first round, desperate to get it right this time. Or we become compulsive comparers - always measuring our lives against some other person's life, secretly wondering if we should have taken her path instead. — Elizabeth Gilbert

The goal of all learning is to repair the ruin of our first parents. — John Milton

I don't really know where the songs are coming from often. Many of the best things I made up were just off the top of my head. — Stephen Malkmus

Religious questions have often led to wicked and impious actions. — Lucretius

I think what's known about neurology is still scattered and uncertain. — Clifford Geertz