I can’t see (or feel) the conflict between love and religion. To me they’re the same thing.
—Elizabeth Bowen, c. 1970
Archive
Quotes
Nowadays three witty turns of phrase and a lie make a writer.
—G.C. Lichtenberg, c. 1780It is easy to distinguish between the joking that reflects good breeding and that which is coarse—the one, if aired at an apposite moment of mental relaxation, is becoming in the most serious of men, whereas the other is unworthy of any free person, if the content is indecent or the expression obscene.
—Cicero, c. 44 BCAttacks on me will do no harm, and silent contempt is the best answer to them.
—James Monroe, 1808He who would have clear water should go to the fountainhead.
—Italian proverbWhat water gives, water takes away.
—Portuguese proverbHe that would eat the nut must crack the shell.
—Plautus, c. 200 BCYouth is the time to go flashing from one end of the world to the other both in mind and body, to try the manners of different nations, to hear the chimes at midnight.
—Robert Louis Stevenson, 1881Luck, in the great game of war, is undoubtedly lord of all.
—Arthur Griffiths, 1899We are able to find everything in our memory, which is like a dispensary or chemical laboratory in which chance steers our hand sometimes to a soothing drug and sometimes to a dangerous poison.
—Marcel Proust, c. 1922The tune I remember, could I but keep the words.
—Virgil, 38 BCOil! Our secret god, our secret sharer, our magic wand, fulfiller of our every desire, our coconspirator, the sine qua non in all we do!
—Margaret Atwood, 2015Liberty and democracy are eternal enemies.
—H.L. Mencken, 1925