A fool’s brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence university education.
—George Bernard Shaw, 1903
Archive
Quotes
Imagination is the secret and marrow of civilization. It is the very eye of faith.
—Henry Ward Beecher, 1887I used to think that everyone was just being funny. But now I don’t know. I mean, how can you tell?
—Andy Warhol, 1970You may drive out nature with a pitchfork, yet she’ll be constantly running back.
—Horace, 20 BCIntolerance is evidence of impotence.
—Aleister Crowley, c. 1925A joke is at most a temporary rebellion against virtue, and its aim is not to degrade the human being but to remind him that he is already degraded.
—George Orwell, 1945I never know quite when I’m not writing. Sometimes my wife comes up to me at a party and says, Dammit, Thurber, stop writing. She usually catches me in the middle of a paragraph. Or my daughter will look up from the dinner table and ask, Is he sick? No, my wife says, he’s writing something.
—James Thurber, 1955It is shameful and inhuman to treat men like chattels to make money by, or to regard them merely as so much muscle or physical power.
—Pope Leo XIII, 1891There are some who, if a cat accidentally comes into the room, though they neither see it nor are told of it, will presently be in a sweat and ready to die away.
—Increase Mather, 1684More and more I like to take a train. I understand why the French prefer it to automobiling—it is so much more sociable, and of course these days so much more of an adventure, and the irregularity of its regularity is fascinating.
—Gertrude Stein, 1943The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes “sightseeing.”
—Daniel Boorstin, 1961Fame is no sanctuary from the passing of youth. Suicide is much easier and more acceptable in Hollywood than growing old gracefully.
—Julie Burchill, 1986There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.
—Anthony Trollope, 1862