I curse the night, yet doth from day me hide.
—William Drummond, 1616
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Quotes
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, 1776What is death? A scary mask. Take it off—see, it doesn’t bite.
—Epictetus, c. 110Youth is the time to go flashing from one end of the world to the other both in mind and body, to try the manners of different nations, to hear the chimes at midnight.
—Robert Louis Stevenson, 1881I’ve never understood why people consider youth a time of freedom and joy. It’s probably because they have forgotten their own.
—Margaret Atwood, 1976Only the little people pay taxes.
—Leona Helmsley, 1989Someone who knows too much finds it hard not to lie.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1947Midnight shakes the memory
As a madman shakes a dead geranium.
Reality is always the foe of famous names.
—Petrarch, 1337Animals are good to think with.
—Claude Lévi-Strauss, 1962To know intense joy without a strong bodily frame, one must have an enthusiastic soul.
—George Eliot, 1872Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.
—Saint Augustine, c. 400Thou art not to learn the humors and tricks of that old bald cheater, time.
—Ben Jonson, 1601