Archive

Quotes

Exile lacks the grandeur, the majesty, of expatriation.

—Bharati Mukherjee, 1999

The severity of a teacher is better than the love of a father.

—Saadi, 1258

Can you take your country with you on the soles of your shoes?

—Georg Büchner, 1835

To teach is to learn twice over.

—Joseph Joubert, c. 1805

Once a woman has lost her chastity she will shrink from nothing.

—Tacitus, c. 100

Motherhood is the strangest thing, it can be like being one’s own Trojan horse.

—Rebecca West, 1959

An exile with no home anywhere is a corpse without a grave.

—Publilius Syrus, 50 BC

He who commands the sea has command of everything.

—Francis Bacon, c. 1600

I went [to war] because I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want the glory or the pay; I wanted the right thing done.

—Louisa May Alcott, 1863

Revolutions are celebrated when they are no longer dangerous. 

—Pierre Boulez, 1989

Reminiscences make one feel so deliciously aged and sad.

—George Bernard Shaw, 1886

God seems to have left the receiver off the hook, and time is running out.

—Arthur Koestler, 1967

If I played in New York, they’d name a candy bar after me.

—Reggie Jackson, 1976