Every tooth in a man’s head is more valuable than a diamond.
—Miguel de Cervantes, 1605Quotes
I would delight in music, but the music is discordant.
—Xie Lingyun, c. 425Good fortune is light as a feather, but nobody knows how to hold it up. Misfortune is heavy as the earth, but nobody knows how to stay out of its way.
—Zhuangzi, c. 300 BCStrangers are an endangered species.
—Adrienne Rich, 1980Give us the child for eight years and it will be a Bolshevist forever.
—Vladimir Lenin, 1923I curse the night, yet doth from day me hide.
—William Drummond, 1616I imagine that one of the first forms of behavior, like one of the first signals, may be reduced to this: “Keep me warm.”
—Michel Serres, 1982How sickness enlarges the dimension of a man’s self to himself! He is his own exclusive object.
—Charles Lamb, 1833Friendship’s a noble name, ’tis love refined.
—Susanna Centlivre, 1703France has neither winter, summer, nor morals—apart from these drawbacks it is a fine country.
—Mark Twain, 1879Nature is immovable.
—Euripides, c. 415 BCTalk to me about the truth of religion and I’ll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I’ll listen submissively. But don’t come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don’t understand.
—C.S. Lewis, 1961Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height.
—E.M. Forster, 1910