A woman’s greatest glory is to be little talked about by men, whether for good or ill.
—Pericles, c. 450 BC
Archive
Quotes
In every human breast, God has implanted a principle, which we call love of freedom; it is impatient of oppression and pants for deliverance.
—Phillis Wheatley, 1774Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.
—Jeremy Bentham, c. 1832The day unravels what the night has woven.
—Walter Benjamin, 1929The past is always tense and the future, perfect.
—Zadie Smith, 2000Happiness does not dwell in herds, nor yet in gold.
—Democritus, c. 420 BCMoney is mourned with deeper sorrow than friends or kindred.
—Juvenal, 128We do not suffer by accident.
—Jane Austen, 1813Insurrection of thought always precedes insurrection of arms.
—Wendell Phillips, 1859The happy ending is our national belief.
—Mary McCarthy, 1947Do you suppose that will change the sense of the morals, the fact that we can’t use morals as a means of judging the city because we couldn’t stand it? And that we’re changing our whole moral system to suit the fact that we’re living in a ridiculous way?
—Philip Johnson, 1965We cherish our friends not for their ability to amuse us but for ours to amuse them.
—Evelyn Waugh, 1963As to the sea itself, love it you cannot. Why should you? I will never believe again the sea was ever loved by anyone whose life was married to it. It is the creation of omnipotence, which is not of humankind and understandable, and so the springs of its behavior are hidden.
—H.M. Tomlinson, 1912