Seafarers go to sleep in the evening not knowing whether they will find themselves at the bottom of the sea the next morning.
—Jean de Joinville, c. 1305
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Quotes
We must select the illusion which appeals to our temperament and embrace it with passion if we want to be happy.
—Cyril Connolly, 1944One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art.
—Oscar Wilde, 1894After each night we are emptier: our mysteries and our griefs have leaked away into our dreams.
—E.M. Cioran, 1949When the stomach is full, it is easy to talk of fasting.
—St. Jerome, 395As to the sea itself, love it you cannot. Why should you? I will never believe again the sea was ever loved by anyone whose life was married to it. It is the creation of omnipotence, which is not of humankind and understandable, and so the springs of its behavior are hidden.
—H.M. Tomlinson, 1912I curse the night, yet doth from day me hide.
—William Drummond, 1616If a parricide is more wicked than anyone who commits homicide—because he kills not merely a man but a near relative—without doubt worse still is he who kills himself, because there is none nearer to a man than himself.
—Saint Augustine, c. 420I must be a mermaid, Rango. I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living.
—Anaïs Nin, 1950Alcohol is the monarch of liquids.
—Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, 1825The planet keeps to the astronomer’s timetable, but the wind still bloweth almost where it listeth.
—John Henry Poynting, 1899Give me chastity and continence, but not just now.
—Saint Augustine, 397Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.
—Mark Twain, 1893