It is a certain sign of a wise government and proceeding, when it can hold men’s hearts by hopes, when it cannot by satisfaction.
—Francis Bacon, 1625
Archive
Quotes
I am ill every time it blows hard, and nothing but my enthusiastic love for the profession keeps me one hour at sea.
—Admiral Horatio Nelson, 1804I’ve a grand memory for forgetting.
—Robert Louis Stevenson, 1886Every adolescent has that dream every century has that dream every revolutionary has that dream, to destroy the family.
—Gertrude Stein, 1940To hold a throne is luck; to bestow it, virtue.
—Seneca the Younger, c. 45Children are all foreigners. We treat them as such.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1839We must select the illusion which appeals to our temperament and embrace it with passion if we want to be happy.
—Cyril Connolly, 1944Iron may break gold, but water remains whole.
—Ge Hong, c. 300You cannot endow even the best machine with initiative; the jolliest steamroller will not plant flowers.
—Walter Lippmann, 1913One is never as unhappy as one thinks, nor as happy as one hopes.
—La Rochefoucauld, 1664It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
—Upton Sinclair, 1935What is outside my mind means nothing to it.
—Marcus Aurelius, c. 170Law makes long spokes of the short stakes of men.
—William Empson, 1928