Archive

Quotes

The ingrained idea that, because there is no king and they despise titles, the Americans are a free people is pathetically untrue.

—Margot Asquith, 1922

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

—Philip Sidney, 1582

A difference of taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.

—George Eliot, 1876

People commonly travel the world over to see rivers and mountains, new stars, garish birds, freak fish, grotesque breeds of human; they fall into an animal stupor that gapes at existence, and they think they have seen something.

—Søren Kierkegaard, 1843

An old man is twice a child, and so is a drunken man.

—Plato, c. 360 BC

Anyone who in discussion quotes authority uses his memory rather than his intellect.

—Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1500

The whole secret of fencing consists but in two things, to give and not to receive.

—Molière, 1670

I would much rather have men ask why I have no statue than why I have one.

—Cato the Elder, c. 184 BC

Human happiness never remains long in the same place.

—Herodotus, c. 430 BC

There’s plenty of fire in the coldest flint!

—Rachel Field, 1939

Many need no other provocation to enmity than that they find themselves excelled.

—Samuel Johnson, 1751

As matron and mistress will differ in temper and tone, so will the friend be distinct from the faithless parasite.

—Horace, c. 20 BC

Ah! Freedom is a noble thing!

—John Barbour, 1375