Oil/basis

Famous quotes containing the words oil and/or basis:

    “Opinions are to the vast apparatus of social existence what oil is to machines: one does not go up to a turbine and pour machine oil over it; one applies a little to hidden spindles and joints that one has to know.”
    —Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)

    “Buddhists and Christians contrive to agree about death

    Making death their ideal basis for different ideals.
    The Communists however disapprove of death
    Except when practical.”
    —William Empson (1906–1984)