Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in the nineteenth century that one cannot explain away.
—Oscar Wilde, 1891
Archive
Quotes
No lyric poems live long or please many people which are written by drinkers of water.
—Horace, 20 BCHoping for new friendship from old enemies is / Like expecting to find a rose in a furnace.
—Muhammad Baqir Najm-i Sani, 1612Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid.
—Frank Zappa, 1989A miracle drug is any drug that will do what the label says it will do.
—Eric Hodgins, 1964Traveling is like gambling: it is ever connected with winning and losing, and generally where least expected we receive more or less than we hoped for.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1797Play, wherein persons of condition, especially ladies, waste so much of their time, is a plain instance to me that men cannot be perfectly idle; they must be doing something, for how else could they sit so many hours toiling at that which generally gives more vexation than delight to people whilst they are actually engaged in it?
—John Locke, 1693The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honor or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1774The gift of a common tongue is a priceless inheritance and it may well some day become the foundation of a common citizenship.
—Winston Churchill, 1943Superstitions are habits rather than beliefs.
—Marlene Dietrich, 1962Most men employ the first years of their life in making the last miserable.
—Jean de La Bruyère, 1688Friendship itself will not stand the strain of very much good advice for very long.
—Robert Wilson Lynd, 1924Once a woman has lost her chastity she will shrink from nothing.
—Tacitus, c. 100