Famous quotes containing the words background, greatest and/or common:
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“When she asked him about birth control, he sat down beside her and talked for half an hour about what a great woman Margaret Sanger was and how birthcontrol was the greatest single blessing to mankind since the invention of fire.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“The object of government in peace and in war is not the glory of rulers or of races, but the happiness of the common man.”
—William, Lord Beveridge (1879–1963)