Anyone who has a child should train him to be either a physicist or a ballet dancer. Then he’ll escape.
—W.H. Auden, 1947
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Quotes
Governments are not overthrown by the poor, who have no power, but by the rich—when they are insulted by their inferiors and cannot obtain justice.
—Dionysius of Halicarnassus, c. 20 BCHow sad a sight is human happiness to those whose thoughts can pierce beyond an hour!
—Edward Young, 1741Physician, heal yourself: thus you help your patient too. Let his best help be to see with his own eyes the man who makes himself well.
—Friedrich Nietzsche, c. 1884Water is the readiest means of making friends with nature.
—Ludwig Feuerbach, 1841I rather think the cinema will die. Look at the energy being exerted to revive it—yesterday it was color, today three dimensions. I don’t give it forty years more. Witness the decline of conversation. Only the Irish have remained incomparable conversationalists, maybe because technical progress has passed them by.
—Orson Welles, 1953The purest joy is to live without disguise, unconstrained by the ties of a grave reputation.
—Al-Hariri, c. 1108It is noble to die before doing anything that deserves death.
—Anaxandrides, c. 376A fool’s brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence university education.
—George Bernard Shaw, 1903Whoever expects to walk peacefully in the world must be money’s guest.
—Norman O. Brown, 1959The spirit of revolution, the spirit of insurrection, is a spirit radically opposed to liberty.
—François Guizot, 1830Be courteous to all but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence.
—George Washington, 1783Wit enables us to act rudely with impunity.
—La Rochefoucauld, 1678