Recreations should be as sauces to your meat, to sharpen your appetite unto the duties of your calling, and not to glut yourselves with them.
—Thomas Gouge, 1672
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Quotes
When the abbot throws the dice, the whole convent will play.
—Martin Luther, c. 1540Some people make stuff; other people have to buy it. And when we gave up making stuff, starting in the 1980s, we were left with the unique role of buying.
—Barbara Ehrenreich, 2008A tree’s a tree. How many more do you need to look at?
—Ronald Reagan, 1965The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much.
—Joseph Conrad, 1899Strength of mind is exercise, not rest.
—Alexander Pope, 1733A whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard.
—Herman Melville, 1851Among famous traitors of history, one might mention the weather.
—Ilka Chase, 1969Anyone who’s never watched somebody die is suffering from a pretty bad case of virginity.
—John Osborne, 1956Your mind’s got to eat, too.
—Dambudzo Marechera, 1978Anyone who has passed through the regular gradations of a classical education, and is not made a fool by it, may consider himself as having had a very narrow escape.
—William Hazlitt, 1821If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
—Voltaire, 1764Greeting cards routinely tell us everybody deserves love. No. Everybody deserves clean water.
—Zadie Smith, 2000