Archive

Quotes

What is popularly called fame is nothing but an empty name and a legacy from paganism.

—Erasmus, 1515

Alongside all swindlers the state now stands there as swindler-in-chief.

—Jacob Burckhardt, c. 1875

Men, my dear, are very queer animals—a mixture of horse nervousness, ass stubbornness, and camel malice.

—T. H. Huxley, 1895

Every ass thinks himself worthy to stand with the king’s horses.

—Gnomologia, 1732

Think where man’s glory most begins and ends, / And say my glory was I had such friends.

—W.B. Yeats, 1937

Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world: it gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel. The picture of free, untrammeled womanhood.

—Susan B. Anthony, 1896

I cannot live without books, but fewer will suffice where amusement, and not use, is the only future object.

—Thomas Jefferson, 1815

They are trying to make me into a fixed star. I am an irregular planet.

—Martin Luther, c. 1530

There are some who, if a cat accidentally comes into the room, though they neither see it nor are told of it, will presently be in a sweat and ready to die away.

—Increase Mather, 1684

True friendship withstands time, distance, and silence.

—Isabel Allende, 2000

All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.

—Toni Morrison, 1987

Laughter almost ever cometh of things most disproportioned to ourselves and nature. Laughter hath only a scornful tickling.

—Philip Sidney, 1582

There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.

—Anthony Trollope, 1862