Reminiscences make one feel so deliciously aged and sad.
—George Bernard Shaw, 1886
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Quotes
Anyone who doesn’t know foreign languages knows nothing of his own.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1821You should never have your best trousers on when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.
—Henrik Ibsen, 1882A friend who is very near and dear may in time become as useless as a relative.
—George Ade, 1902The atavistic urge toward danger persists and its satisfaction is called adventure.
—John Steinbeck, 1941Often the prudent, far from making their destinies, succumb to them; it is destiny which makes them prudent.
—Voltaire, 1764What delight can there be, and not rather displeasure, in hearing the barking and howling of dogs? Or what greater pleasure is there to be felt when a dog followeth a hare than when a dog followeth a dog?
—Thomas More, 1516The 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, 1609It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs.
—Thomas Hardy, 1874The screech and mechanical uproar of the big city turns the citified heads, fills citified ears—as the song of birds, wind in the trees, animal cries, or as the voices and songs of his loved ones once filled his heart. He is sidewalk happy.
—Frank Lloyd Wright, 1958If we pretend to respect the artist at all, we must allow him his freedom of choice, in the face, in particular cases, of innumerable presumptions that the choice will not fructify. Art derives a considerable part of its beneficial exercise from flying in the face of presumptions.
—Henry James, 1884To lose confidence in one’s body is to lose confidence in oneself.
—Simone de Beauvoir, 1949Once suspicion is aroused, everything feeds it.
—Amelia Edith Barr, 1885