Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term art, I should call it “the reproduction of what the senses perceive in nature through the veil of the soul.” The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of “artist.”
—Edgar Allan Poe, 1849
Archive
Quotes
Colonialism has meant selling our ore and being left with the holes.
—Samora Moisés Machel, c. 1976Trade is a social act.
—John Stuart Mill, 1859I do desire we may be better strangers.
—William Shakespeare, 1600The human working stock is of interest only insofar as it is profitable.
—Simone de Beauvoir, 1970The celestial machine is to be likened not to a divine organism but rather to a clockwork.
—Johannes Kepler, 1605Friend! It is a common word, often lightly used. Like other good and beautiful things, it may be tarnished by careless handling.
—Harriet Jacobs, 1861How gloriously legible are the constellations of the heavens!
—Anthony Trollope, 1859Peace is a natural effect of trade.
—Montesquieu, 1748If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins to them.
—Francis Bacon, 1625Death keeps no calendar.
—George Herbert, 1640Happiness is no laughing matter.
—Richard Whately, 1843Written laws are like spiderwebs: they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful.
—Anacharsis, c. 550 BC