Archive

Quotes

He makes his cook his merit, and the world visits his dinners and not him.

—Molière, 1666

Anything one is remembering is a repetition, but existing as a human being that is being, listening, and hearing is never repetition.

—Gertrude Stein, 1935

There be beasts that, at a year old, observe more, and pursue that which is for their good more prudently, than a child can do at ten.

—Thomas Hobbes, 1651

How can we bear misfortune most easily? If we see our enemies faring worse.

—Thales of Miletus, c. 585 BC

We don’t have the option of turning away from the future. No one gets to vote on whether technology is going to change our lives.

—Bill Gates, 1995

There are truths that prove their discoverers witless.

—Karl Kraus, 1909

The young man must store up, the old man must use.

—Seneca the Younger, c. 63

Fire destroys that which feeds it.

—Simone Weil, c. 1940

How sickness enlarges the dimension of a man’s self to himself! He is his own exclusive object.

—Charles Lamb, 1833

One race there is of men, one of gods, but from one mother we both draw our breath.

—Pindar, c. 450 BC

Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.

—Henry Kissinger, 1972

The various modes of religion which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true, by the philosophers equally false, and by the magistrate as equally useful.

—Edward Gibbon, 1776

It’s the educated barbarian who is the worst: he knows what to destroy.

—Helen MacInnes, 1963