Democracy, like the human organism, carries within it the seed of its own destruction.
—Veronica Wedgwood, 1946
Archive
Quotes
When a man dies, and his kin are glad of it, they say, “He is better off.”
—Edgar Watson Howe, 1911The fox knows lots of tricks, the hedgehog only one—but it’s a winner.
—Archilochus, c. 650 BCSpit not in the well; you may have to drink its water.
—French proverbIt is not my design to drink or sleep; my design is to make what haste I can to be gone.
—Oliver Cromwell, 1658The purest joy is to live without disguise, unconstrained by the ties of a grave reputation.
—Al-Hariri, c. 1108Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live.
—Socrates, c. 430 BCSome writers take to drink, others take to audiences.
—Gore Vidal, 1981The body says what words cannot.
—Martha Graham, 1985A dog starved at his master’s gate / Predicts the ruin of the state.
—William Blake, 1807Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon.
—E.M. Forster, 1951The great difficulty in education is to get experience out of ideas.
—George Santayana, 1905Gossip isn’t scandal and it’s not merely malicious. It’s chatter about the human race by lovers of the same.
—Phyllis McGinley, 1957