Sarah Bakewell Quotes

#1. Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)

Sarah Bakewell

#2. Seneca did this too: Place before your mind's eye the vast spread of time's abyss, and consider the universe; and then contrast our so-called human life with infinity.

Sarah Bakewell

#3. Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom',

Sarah Bakewell

#4. for Arendt, if you do not respond adequately when the times demand it, you show a lack of imagination and attention that is as dangerous as deliberately committing an abuse.

Sarah Bakewell

#5. As history has repeatedly suggested, nothing is more effective for demolishing traditional legal protections than the combined claims that a crime is uniquely dangerous, and that those behind it have exceptional powers of resistance. [On witchburning in France during the 16th Century.]

Sarah Bakewell

#6. Each man is a good education to himself, provided he has the capacity to spy on himself from close up.

Sarah Bakewell

#7. You should make your choices as though you were choosing on behalf of the whole of humanity,

Sarah Bakewell

#8. Ideas are interesting, but people are vastly more so.

Sarah Bakewell

#9. Seneca put it, life does not pause to remind you that it is running out.

Sarah Bakewell