The power which the sea requires in the sailor makes a man of him very fast, and the change of shores and population clears his head of much nonsense of his wigwam.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1870
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Quotes
The life of a sailor is very unhealthy.
—Francis Galton, 1883I’ve seen the future, brother; it is murder.
—Leonard Cohen, 1992The self is like an infant: given free rein, it craves to suckle.
—al-Busiri, c. 1250Though the boys throw stones at frogs in sport, yet the frogs do not die in sport but in earnest.
—Bion of Smyrna, c. 100 BCThe best augury of a man’s success in his profession is that he thinks it the finest in the world.
—George Eliot, 1876God is a concept by which we measure our pain.
—John Lennon, 1970War has silenced all laws.
—Lucan, c. 65Your mind’s got to eat, too.
—Dambudzo Marechera, 1978The poets did well to conjoin music and medicine, because the office of medicine is but to tune the curious harp of man’s body.
—Francis Bacon, 1605A 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 God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
—Voltaire, 1764Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.
—George Bernard Shaw, 1903