A human being must have occupation, if he or she is not to become a nuisance to the world.
—Dorothy L. Sayers, 1947
Archive
Quotes
It is so difficult not to become vain about one’s own good luck.
—Simone de Beauvoir, 1963Traveling is like flirting with life. It’s like saying, “I would stay here and love you, but I have to go; this is my station.”
—Lisa St. Aubin de Terán, 1989Darkness endows the small and ordinary ones among mankind with poetical power.
—Thomas Hardy, 1874Hunting is all that’s worth living for—all time is lost what is not spent in hunting—it is like the air we breathe—if we have it not we die—it’s the sport of kings, the image of war without its guilt.
—Robert Smith Surtees, 1843It is not my design to drink or sleep; my design is to make what haste I can to be gone.
—Oliver Cromwell, 1658We never are definitely right; we can only be sure we are wrong.
—Richard P. Feynman, 1965An exile with no home anywhere is a corpse without a grave.
—Publilius Syrus, 50 BCWell now, there’s a remedy for everything except death.
—Miguel de Cervantes, 1605Someone who knows too much finds it hard not to lie.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1947And then, sir, there is this consideration: that if the abuse be enormous, nature will rise up and, claiming her original rights, overturn a corrupt political system.
—Samuel Johnson, 1791Water its living strength first shows, / When obstacles its course oppose.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1815If you read somebody’s diary, you get what you deserve.
—David Sedaris, 2004