Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live.
—Socrates, c. 430 BC
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Quotes
I was born without knowing why, I have lived without knowing why, and I am dying without either knowing why or how.
—Pierre Gassendi, 1655In my dreams I sleep with everybody.
—Anaïs Nin, 1933Alongside all swindlers the state now stands there as swindler-in-chief.
—Jacob Burckhardt, c. 1875I think it makes small difference to the dead if they are buried in the tokens of luxury. All this is an empty glorification left for those who live.
—Euripides, 415 BCIn a court of fowls, the cockroach never wins its case.
—Rwandan proverbIf the human race wants to go to hell in a basket, technology can help it get there by jet.
—Charles M. Allen, 1967Ashore it’s wine, women, and song; aboard it’s rum, bum, and concertina.
—British naval saying, c. 1800To blow and to swallow at the same time is not easy; I cannot at the same time be here and also there.
—Plautus, c. 200 BCHe that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.
—Francis Bacon, 1625Revolutions are not about trifles, but they are produced by trifles.
—Aristotle, c. 350 BCWhat experience and history teach is this—that nations and governments have never learned anything from history or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, 1830What a glut of books! Who can read them? As already, we shall have a vast chaos and confusion of books; we are oppressed with them, our eyes ache with reading, our fingers with turning.
—Robert Burton, 1621