Archive

Quotes

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

—John Wilkes Booth, 1865

I’m doomed to die, right? Why should I care if I go to Hades either with gout in my leg or a runner’s grace? Plenty of people will carry me there.

—Nicharchus, c. 90

Those who give the first shock to a state are the first overwhelmed in its ruin; the fruits of public commotion are seldom enjoyed by him who was the first mover; he only beats the water for another’s net.

—Michel de Montaigne, 1580

The breaking of a wave cannot explain the whole sea.

—Vladimir Nabokov, 1941

Lord! I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing.

—Jonathan Swift, 1738

Happiness is a warm puppy.

—Charles Schulz, 1971

Once any group in society stands in a relatively deprived position in relation to other groups, it is genuinely deprived.

—Margaret Mead, 1972

I find the pain of a little censure, even when it is unfounded, is more acute than the pleasure of much praise.

—Thomas Jefferson, 1789

The law looks at no one’s face.

—Gabriel Okara, 1964

Wood burns because it has the proper stuff in it, and a man becomes famous because he has the proper stuff in him.

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, c. 1790

If I played in New York, they’d name a candy bar after me.

—Reggie Jackson, 1976

Don’t talk to me about naval tradition. It’s nothing but rum, sodomy, and the lash.

—Winston Churchill, 1939

Don’t you find it a beautiful clean thought, a world empty of people, just uninterrupted grass, and a hare sitting up?

—D.H. Lawrence, 1920