Skip to content

Their coarseness is the sinew of some kind of brute confidence which is the reason England is home to every shade of political exile. They don't give asylum out of respect for asylum-seekers, but out of respect for themselves. They invented personal liberty, and they know it, and they did it without having any theories about it. They value liberty because it's liberty.

— Tom Stoppard The Coast of Utopia: Salvage (2002)

Another quote →

More quotes by Tom Stoppard

An artist is the magician put among men to gratify — capriciously — their urge for immortality.

Travesties (1974)

Revolution is a trivial shift in the emphasis of suffering; the capacity for self-indulgence changes hands.

Lord Malquist and Mr Moon (1966)

I still believe that if your aim is to change the world, journalism is a more immediate short-term weapon.

An essentially private man who wished his total indifference to public notice to be universally recognized.

Travesties (1974)

It is a defect of God's humour that he directs our hearts everywhere but to those who have a right to them.

Arcadia (1993)

All Tom Stoppard quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Tom Stoppard (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.