The elephant, although a gross beast, is yet the most decent and most sensible of any other upon earth. Although he never changes his female, and hath so tender a love for her whom he hath chosen, yet he never couples with her but at the end of every three years, and then only for the space of five days.
—St. Francis de Sales, 1609
Archive
Quotes
No one’s serious at seventeen.
—Arthur Rimbaud, 1870Living is an ailment that is relieved every sixteen hours by sleep. A palliative. Death is the cure.
—Sébastien-Roch Nicolas Chamfort, c. 1790The history of the land has been written very largely in water.
—John Hodgdon Bradley Jr., 1935No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.
—Samuel Johnson, 1776It raineth every day, and the weather represents our tearful despair on a large scale.
—Mary Boykin Chesnut, 1865I hate the present modes of living and getting a living. Farming and shopkeeping and working at a trade or profession are all odious to me. I should relish getting my living in a simple, primitive fashion.
—Henry David Thoreau, 1855Do you not see how God is praised by those in the heavens and those on earth? The very birds praised Him as they wing their way.
—The Qur’an, c. 620I don’t believe in total freedom for the artist. Left on his own, free to do anything he likes, the artist ends up doing nothing at all. If there’s one thing that’s dangerous for an artist, it’s precisely this question of total freedom, waiting for inspiration and all the rest of it.
—Federico Fellini, c. 1950Water has many ways of reminding us that when we are in it we are out of our element.
—Christopher Hitchens, 2008Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live.
—Socrates, c. 430 BCThe man in constant fear is every day condemned.
—Publilius Syrus, c. 50 BCOil! Our secret god, our secret sharer, our magic wand, fulfiller of our every desire, our coconspirator, the sine qua non in all we do!
—Margaret Atwood, 2015