Animals hear about death for the first time when they die.
—Arthur Schopenhauer, 1819
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Quotes
Life is the art of being well deceived.
—William Hazlitt, c. 1817A brilliant boxing match, quicksilver in its motions, transpiring far more rapidly than the mind can absorb, can have the power that Emily Dickinson attributed to great poetry: you know it’s great when it takes the top of your head off.
—Joyce Carol Oates, 1987Nothing but a permanent body can check the imprudence of democracy.
—Alexander Hamilton, 1787Man is always a wizard to man, and the social world is at first magical.
—Jean-Paul Sartre, 1939If my books had been any worse I should not have been invited to Hollywood, and if they had been any better I should not have come.
—Raymond Chandler, 1945A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest.
—Book of Proverbs, c. 350 BCNo great idea in its beginning can ever be within the law.
—Emma Goldman, 1917He who sings frightens away his ills.
—Miguel de Cervantes, 1605Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
—Marcus Tullius Cicero, 63 BCDo you suppose it possible to know democracy without knowing the people?
—Xenophon, c. 370 BCThe sea yields action to the body, meditation to the mind, the world to the world, all parts thereof to each part, by this art of arts—navigation.
—Samuel Purchas, 1613There is no solitude in the world like that of the big city.
—Kathleen Norris, 1931