Famous quotes containing the words state, fire and/or police:
“No: until I want the protection of Massachusetts to be extended to me in some distant Southern port, where my liberty is endangered, or until I am bent solely on building up an estate at home by peaceful enterprise, I can afford to refuse allegiance to Massachusetts, and her right to my property and life. It costs me less in every sense to incur the penalty of disobedience to the State than it would to obey. I should feel as if I were worth less in that case.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“As I pursued my bodily functions, wanting
Neither fire nor water,
Vibrating to the distant pinch
And turning out the way I am, turning out to greet you.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“I’ve met a lot of murderers in my day, but Dr. Garth, whatever he is, is the first man I’ve ever met who was polite to me and still made the chills run up and down my back.”
—Robert D. Andrews. Nick Grindé. Police detective, Before I Hang, describing his meeting with Dr. Garth (1940)