culture

What a convenient thing is a mask. Under the mask every man is equal and the principal magistrates can daily discover for themselves all the little things that concern the people. Behind the mask the doge himself may often be taking a walk.

- Goldoni

Reality television is a museum of social decay.

- Gary Oldman

Humor is a velvet glove that softens the touch of an iron hand.

- Shelby Foote

The arts always reveal terrible helplessness at the beginning of great epochs. The singing bird of poetry makes itself heard only after sunset, and only at dusk do feeling and reason take in what has happened.

- Leon Trotsky

Great art discloses much that does not appear elsewhere - the unconscious forces, the unspoken ideas, the silent motives of a period.

- George Sansom