Men are able to assist fortune but not to thwart her. They can weave her designs, but they cannot destroy them.
—Niccolò Machiavelli, 1531
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Quotes
Our whole life is but one great school; from the cradle to the grave we are all learners; nor will our education be finished until we die.
—Ann Plato, 1841Every house: temple, empire, school.
—Joseph Joubert, 1800The home is a human institution. All human institutions are open to improvement.
—Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 1903O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes.
—William Shakespeare, c. 1599I hate the present modes of living and getting a living. Farming and shopkeeping and working at a trade or profession are all odious to me. I should relish getting my living in a simple, primitive fashion.
—Henry David Thoreau, 1855The less intelligent the white man is, the more stupid he thinks the black.
—André Gide, 1927In my dreams I sleep with everybody.
—Anaïs Nin, 1933The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes “sightseeing.”
—Daniel Boorstin, 1961Health can make money, but money cannot make health.
—Maria Edgeworth, 1833A tremendous number of people in America work very hard at something that bores them. Even a rich man thinks he has to go down to the office everyday. Not because he likes it but because he can’t think of anything else to do.
—W.H. Auden, 1946The wonderful sea charmed me from the first.
—Joshua Slocum, 1900Society as a whole must be converted into a gigantic school.
—Che Guevara, 1965