History's greatest minds disagreed on life's biggest questions. Explore their opposing wisdom — then pick a side, or let them debate it out.
310 opposing pairs across 26 themes
“Justice, sir, is the great interest of man on earth.”
— Daniel Webster(b. 1782)
Speech, Sept. 30, 1842. Vol. ii. p. 117.
“Grind the faces of the poor.”
— Johann L. Uhland(b. 1787)
Isaiah iii. 1.
“Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!”
— Patrick Henry(b. 1736)
Speech in the Virginia Convention. March, 1775.
“Where bastard Freedom waves The fustian flag in mockery over slaves.”
— Thomas Moore(b. 1779)
Anacreontic.
“Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.”
Romans xii. 20.
“So farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear, Farewell remorse; all good to me is lost. Evil, be thou my good.”
— John Milton(b. 1608)
Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 96.
“The very spring and root of honesty and virtue lie in the felicity of lighting on good education.”
— Plutarch(b. 46)
Of the Training of Children.
“Modestus said of Regulus that he was "the biggest rascal that walks upon two legs."”
— Pliny The Younger(b. 61)
“Of right and wrong he taught Truths as refined as ever Athens heard; And (strange to tell!) he practised what he preached.”
— Francis W. Bourdillon(b. 1852)
Divine Love.
“Religion blushing, veils her sacred fires, And unawares Morality expires. Nor public flame nor private dares to shine; Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine! Lo! thy dread empire Chaos is restor'd, Light dies before thy uncreating word; Thy hand, great Anarch, lets the curtain fall, And universal darkness buries all.”
— Alexander Pope(b. 1688)
The Dunciad. Book iv. Line 614.
“Labour to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire,--conscience.”
— George Washington(b. 1732)
“That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake my fell purpose.”
— William Shakespeare(b. 1564)
Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 5.
“A wit 's a feather, and a chief a rod; An honest man 's the noblest work of God.[319-1]”
Essay on Man. Epistle iv. Line 215.
“Take note, take note, O world, To be direct and honest is not safe.”
Othello. Act iii. Sc. 3.
“I shall detain you no longer in the demonstration of what we should not do, but straight conduct ye to a hillside, where I will point ye out the right path of a virtuous and noble education; laborious indeed at the first ascent, but else so smooth, so green, so full of goodly prospect and melodious sounds on every side that the harp of Orpheus was not more charming.”
Tractate of Education.
“Led by my hand, he saunter'd Europe round, And gather'd every vice on Christian ground.”
The Dunciad. Book iv. Line 301.
“"_Good name_, in man or woman, dear my lord, Is the immediate _jewel_ of their souls."”
Psalm cxii. 6.
“Reputation, reputation, reputation! Oh, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial.”
Othello. Act ii. Sc. 3.
“The guard dies, but never surrenders.[810-5]”
Ingomar the Barbarian._[806-4] _Act ii.
“Honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I come on,--how then? Can honour set to a leg? no: or an arm? no: or take away the grief of a wound? no. Honour hath no skill in surgery, then? no. What is honour? a word. What is in that word honour; what is that honour? air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it? he that died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it? no. Doth he hear it? no. 'T is insensible, then? yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? no. Why? detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I 'll none of it. Honour is a mere scutcheon. And so ends my catechism.”
King Henry IV. Part I. Act v. Sc. 1.
“It is better not to live at all than to live disgraced.”
— Sophocles(b. 496)
Hipponous. Frag. 280.
“He shall be buried with the burial of an ass.”
Jeremiah xvii. 1.
“Earth! render back from out thy breast A remnant of our Spartan dead! Of the three hundred grant but three To make a new Thermopylæ.”
— Lord Byron(b. 1788)
Don Juan. Canto iii. Stanza 86. 3.
“The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise is gone.”
— Edmund Burke(b. 1729)
Reflections on the Revolution in France. Vol. iii. p. 331.
“He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not.”
Psalm xiv. 1; liii. 1.
“But, alas, to make me A fixed figure for the time of scorn To point his slow unmoving finger[155-2] at!”
Othello. Act iv. Sc. 2.
“before leaving for Pizzighettone, wrote to his mother the memorable letter which, thanks to tradition, has become altered to the form of this sublime laconism: "Madame, tout est perdu fors l'honneur."”
“Done to death by slanderous tongues.”
Much Ado about Nothing. Act v. Sc. 2.
“A thing of beauty is a joy forever; Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness.”
— John Keats(b. 1795)
“Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain.”
Proverbs xxxi. 29.
“And oh if there be an Elysium on earth, It is this, it is this!”
Lalla Rookh. The Light of the Harem.
“As a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, so is a fair woman which is without discretion.”
Proverbs xi. 15.
“One of those heavenly days that cannot die.”
— William Wordsworth(b. 1770)
Peter Bell. Part i. Stanza 16.
“Their discords sting through Burns and Moore, Like hedgehogs dressed in lace.”
— Oliver Wendell Holmes(b. 1809)
To an Insect.
“The matchless Ganymed, divinely fair.[340-2]”
The Iliad of Homer. Book xx. Line 127.
“Fill'd the air with barbarous dissonance.”
Comus. Line 496.
“O woman! lovely woman! Nature made thee To temper man: we had been brutes without you. Angels are painted fair, to look like you: There 's in you all that we believe of heaven,-- Amazing brightness, purity, and truth, Eternal joy, and everlasting love.”
— Thomas Otway(b. 1651)
“O thou weed, Who art so lovely fair and smell'st so sweet That the sense aches at thee, would thou hadst ne'er been born.”
“For right is right, since God is God,[653-1] And right the day must win; To doubt would be disloyalty, To falter would be sin.”
— F. W. Faber(b. 1814)
“The public weal requires that men should betray and lie and massacre.”
— Michael De Montaigne(b. 1533)
Book ii. Chap. xxxvii. Of the Resemblance of Children to their Fathers.