Seek not water, only show you are thirsty, / That water may spring up all around you.
—Rumi, c. 1260
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Quotes
Health in all lands is among the indispensable guarantees of human progress.
—Helen Keller, 1936I cannot bear a parent’s tears.
—Virgil, c. 25 BCMan and animals are really the conduit of food, the sepulcher of animals, and resting place of the dead, one causing the death of the other, making themselves the covering for the corruption of other dead bodies.
—Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1500Sanity is madness put to good uses; waking life is a dream controlled.
—George Santayana, 1920Imagination continually outruns the creature it inhabits.
—Katherine Anne Porter, 1949The great difficulty lies in trying to transpose last night’s moment to a day which has no knowledge of it.
—Zora Neale Hurston, 1942The charm, one might say the genius, of memory is that it is choosy, chancy, and temperamental: it rejects the edifying cathedral and indelibly photographs the small boy outside, chawing a hunk of melon in the dust.
—Elizabeth Bowen, 1955To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the need for thought.
—Henri Poincaré, 1903One of the secrets of a happy life is continuous small treats.
—Iris Murdoch, 1978Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
—Benjamin Franklin, 1755Oil dependency is not just an economic attachment but appears as a kind of cognitive compulsion.
—Peter Hitchcock, 2010Plagues are as certain as death and taxes.
—Richard Krause, 1982