Archive

Quotes

Repetition is the mother of education.

—Jean Paul, 1807

Men, my dear, are very queer animals—a mixture of horse nervousness, ass stubbornness, and camel malice.

—T. H. Huxley, 1895

There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.

—Thomas Jefferson, 1790

The elephant, although a gross beast, is yet the most decent and most sensible of any other upon earth. Although he never changes his female, and hath so tender a love for her whom he hath chosen, yet he never couples with her but at the end of every three years, and then only for the space of five days.

—St. Francis de Sales, 1609

Motherhood is the strangest thing, it can be like being one’s own Trojan horse.

—Rebecca West, 1959

No human being is innocent, but there is a class of innocent human actions called games.

—W.H. Auden, 1962

There are times when reality becomes too complex for oral communication. But legend gives it a form by which it pervades the whole world.

—Jean-Luc Godard, 1965

Abstainer, n. A weak man who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.

—Ambrose Bierce, 1906

The thing that impresses me most about America is the way parents obey their children.

—Edward VIII, 1957

’Tis a portentous sign / When a man sweats and at the same time shivers.

—Plautus, c. 180 BC

When you have only two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other.

—Chinese proverb

Shame on the soul, to falter on the road of life while the body still perseveres.

—Marcus Aurelius, c. 170

Give us the luxuries of life, and we will dispense with the necessities.

—John Lothrop Motley, 1858