The world began without man, and it will end without him.
—Claude Lévi-Strauss, 1955
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Quotes
To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life.
—Walter Pater, 1873To gaze upon a drop of water is to behold the nature of all the waters of the universe.
—Huangbo Xiyun, c. 850We wish away whole years, and travel through time as through a country filled with many wild and empty wastes, which we would fain hurry over, that we may arrive at those several little settlements or imaginary points of rest which are dispersed up and down in it.
—Joseph Addison, 1711All things are filled full of signs, and it is a wise man who can learn about one thing from another.
—Plotinus, c. 255Commerce has made all winds her ministers.
—John Sterling, 1843I’m afraid of losing my obscurity. Genuineness only thrives in the dark. Like celery.
—Aldous Huxley, 1925A brilliant boxing match, quicksilver in its motions, transpiring far more rapidly than the mind can absorb, can have the power that Emily Dickinson attributed to great poetry: you know it’s great when it takes the top of your head off.
—Joyce Carol Oates, 1987If they prescribe a lot of remedies for some sickness or other, it means that the sickness is incurable.
—Anton Chekhov, 1904The friend of all humanity is no friend to me.
—Molière, 1666Famous, adj. Conspicuously miserable.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1906One’s friends are divided into two classes, those one knows because one must and those one knows because one mustn’t.
—Sybil Taylor, 1922Time’s ruins build eternity’s mansions.
—James Joyce, 1922