At night comes counsel to the wise.
—Menander, c. 300 BC
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Quotes
All people have the common desire to be elevated in honor, but all people have something still more elevated in themselves without knowing it.
—Mencius, c. 330 BCMemories are like corks left out of bottles. They swell. They no longer fit.
—Harriet Doerr, 1978To be sick is to enjoy monarchal prerogatives.
—Charles Lamb, 1833Do we want laurels for ourselves most, / Or most that no one else shall have any?
—Amy Lowell, 1922Why listen to me? I can only predict epidemics and plagues.
—Larry Kramer, 1992Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its brevity.
—Jean de La Bruyère, 1688Does anybody really want to attend to cities other than to flee, fleece, privatize, butcher, or decimate them?
—Jane Holtz Kay, 1992Friendship was given by nature to be an assistant to virtue, not a companion to vice.
—Marcus Tullius Cicero, c. 45 BCThey are trying to make me into a fixed star. I am an irregular planet.
—Martin Luther, c. 1530Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no; drunkenness expands, unites, and says yes.
—William James, 1902It has always been my practice to cast a long paragraph in a single mold, to try it by my ear, to deposit it in my memory, but to suspend the action of the pen till I had given the last polish to my work.
—Edward Gibbon, c. 1790Better no law than no law enforced.
—Danish proverb