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Quotes

Unfortunately, humanitarianism has been the mark of an inhuman time.

—G.K. Chesterton, 1932

Friendship itself will not stand the strain of very much good advice for very long.

—Robert Wilson Lynd, 1924

What mighty contests rise from trivial things.

—Alexander Pope, 1712

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

The greatest thing in family life is to take a hint when a hint is intended—and not to take a hint when a hint isn’t intended.

—Robert Frost, 1939

Art transcends its limitations only by staying within them.

—Flannery O’Connor, 1964

From a man’s face, I can read his character. If I can see him walk, I know his thoughts.

—Gaius Petronius Arbiter, c. 60

What the brain does by itself is infinitely more fascinating and complex than any response it can make to chemical stimulation.

—Ursula K. Le Guin, 1971

Punishment is a sort of medicine.

—Aristotle, c. 340 BC

Rain is grace; rain is the sky condescending to the earth; without rain there would be no life.

—John Updike, 1989

Animals are good to think with.

—Claude Lévi-Strauss, 1962

History is a people’s memory, and without a memory man is demoted to the level of the lower animals.

—Malcolm X, 1964

If the bird does like its cage, and does like its sugar, and will not leave it, why keep the door so very carefully shut?

—Olive Schreiner, 1883