He knows the water best who has waded through it.
—Danish proverb
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Quotes
Brains are the only things worth having in this world.
—L. Frank Baum, 1899We seek with our human hands to create a second nature in the natural world.
—Marcus Tullius Cicero, 45 BCThose who give the first shock to a state are the first overwhelmed in its ruin; the fruits of public commotion are seldom enjoyed by him who was the first mover; he only beats the water for another’s net.
—Michel de Montaigne, 1580Like a broken gong be still, be silent. Know the stillness of freedom where there is no more striving.
—Siddhartha Gautama, c. 500 BCWe 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. 1922What reason weaves, by passion is undone.
—Alexander Pope, 1972Style is the image of character.
—Edward Gibbon, c. 1789Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.
Money, not morality, is the principle of commercial nations.
—Thomas JeffersonI’m doomed to die, right? Why should I care if I go to Hades either with gout in my leg or a runner’s grace? Plenty of people will carry me there.
—Nicharchus, c. 90Is this dying? Is this all? Is this all that I feared when I prayed against a hard death? Oh, I can bear this! I can bear it!
—Cotton Mather, 1728A dissolute and intemperate youth hands down the body to old age in a worn-out state.
—Cicero, 44 BC