The brightest light burns the quickest.
—Olive Beatrice Muir, 1900
Archive
Quotes
How sickness enlarges the dimension of a man’s self to himself! He is his own exclusive object.
—Charles Lamb, 1833Love is giving something you haven’t got to someone who doesn’t exist.
—Jacques LacanEven though counting heads is not an ideal way to govern, at least it is better than breaking them.
—Learned Hand, 1932Educate people without religion and you make them but clever devils.
—Arthur Wellesley, c. 1830Men, my dear, are very queer animals—a mixture of horse nervousness, ass stubbornness, and camel malice.
—T. H. Huxley, 1895A self-made man is one who believes in luck and sends his son to Oxford.
—Christina Stead, 1938I was born without knowing why, I have lived without knowing why, and I am dying without either knowing why or how.
—Pierre Gassendi, 1655A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.
—Jane Austen, 1814Speech is the mirror of the soul; as a man speaks, so is he.
—Publilius Syrus, c. 50 BCWar to the castles; peace to the cottages.
—Nicolas Chamfort, 1790Give us this day our television, and an automobile, but deliver us from freedom.
—Jean-Luc Godard, 1966Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.
—Jeremy Bentham, c. 1832