Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its brevity.
—Jean de La Bruyère, 1688
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Quotes
A passion for horses, players, and gladiators seems to be the epidemic folly of the times. The child receives it in his mother’s womb; he brings it with him into the world, and in a mind so possessed, what room for science, or any generous purpose?
—Tacitus, c. 100Jokes are grievances.
—Marshall McLuhan, 1969The best augury of a man’s success in his profession is that he thinks it the finest in the world.
—George Eliot, 1876To make laws that man cannot and will not obey serves to bring all law into contempt.
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 1860What the brain does by itself is infinitely more fascinating and complex than any response it can make to chemical stimulation.
—Ursula K. Le Guin, 1971I work for a government I despise for ends I think criminal.
—John Maynard Keynes, 1917Better no law than no law enforced.
—Danish proverbWere I called on to define, very briefly, the term art, I should call it “the reproduction of what the senses perceive in nature through the veil of the soul.” The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of “artist.”
—Edgar Allan Poe, 1849Money, not morality, is the principle of commercial nations.
—Thomas JeffersonWhat can you conceive more silly and extravagant than to suppose a man racking his brains and studying night and day how to fly?
—William Law, 1728Write while the heat is in you. The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with. He cannot inflame the minds of his audience.
—Henry David Thoreau, 1852God never sent a messenger save with the language of his folk, that he might make the message clear for them.
—The Qur’an, c. 620