Jessica

“Athées: Noms que les théologiens donnent assez libéralement à quiconque ne pense pas comme eux sur la divinité, ou ne la croit pas telle qu’ils l’ont arrangée dans le creux de leurs infaillibles cerveaux. En général un athée c’est tout homme qui ne croit pas au dieu des prêtres.”
― Baron d'Holbach, La Théologie portative ou Dictionnaire abrégé de la religion chrétienne

“The history of empires is the history of human misery.”
― Edward Gibbon

“One senses that Hegel was possible only in German, and finds it natural that Locke in a language where large and red precede apple should have arrived at the thing after sorting out its sensory qualities, whereas Descartes in a language where grosse et rouge follows pomme should have come to the attributes after the distinct idea.”
― Hugh Kenner

“[On Du Bois] Celebrated Negro scholar and organizer. 70 years old, but looks 50. Dusky face, grizzled goatee, nice wrinkles, big ears — prodigiously like a White Russian General in mufti played sympathetically by Emil Jannings. Piebald hands. Brilliant talker, with an old-world touch. Très gentilhomme. Smokes special Turkish cigarettes. Charming and distinguished in other, more important, ways. Told me that when he went to England he was listed as “Colonel” on the Channel boat, because his name bore the addition “Col.” on his passport.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Dear Bunny, Dear Volodya: The Nabokov-Wilson Letters, 1940-1971