The happy ending is our national belief.
—Mary McCarthy, 1947
Archive
Quotes
I take it as a prime cause of the present confusion of society that it is too sickly and too doubtful to use pleasure frankly as a test of value.
—Rebecca West, 1939I’ve dreamed enough to have a drink.
—François Rabelais, 1546Think where man’s glory most begins and ends, / And say my glory was I had such friends.
—W.B. Yeats, 1937Towns oftener swamp one than carry one out onto the big ocean of life.
—D.H. Lawrence, 1908Society as a whole must be converted into a gigantic school.
—Che Guevara, 1965How gloriously legible are the constellations of the heavens!
—Anthony Trollope, 1859My mother protected me from the world and my father threatened me with it.
—Quentin Crisp, 1968The period is not very remote when the benefits of a liberal and free commerce will, pretty generally, succeed to the devastations and horrors of war.
—George Washington, 1786It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.
—The BibleI’ve got some shit I’m conservative about and some shit I’m liberal about. Crime—I’m conservative. Prostitution—I’m liberal.
—Chris Rock, 2008The most hateful torment for men is to have knowledge of everything but power over nothing.
—Herodotus, c. 425 BCMore pernicious nonsense was never devised by man than treaties of commerce.
—Benjamin Disraeli, 1880