Archive

Quotes

Moderation in all things.

—Terence, 166 BC

Luck, in the great game of war, is undoubtedly lord of all.

—Arthur Griffiths, 1899

I know what I have given you. I do not know what you have received.

—Antonio Porchia, 1943

The most socially subversive institution of our time is the one-parent family.

—Paul Johnson, 1989

Jazz is the result of the energy stored up in America.

—George Gershwin, 1933

Opposition may become sweet to a man when he has christened it persecution.

—George Eliot, 1857

Words pay no debts.

—William Shakespeare, 1601

People can say what they like about the eternal verities, love and truth and so on, but nothing’s as eternal as the dishes.

—Margaret Mahy, 1985

There is no small pleasure in sweet water.

—Ovid, c. 10

Friendships begin with liking or gratitude—roots that can be pulled up.

—George Eliot, 1876

The drunken man is a living corpse.

—St. John Chrysostom, c. 390

The self is like an infant: given free rein, it craves to suckle.

—al-Busiri, c. 1250

If the present be compared with the remote past, it is easily seen that in all cities and in all peoples there are the same desires and the same passions as there always were.

—Niccolò Machiavelli, c. 1513