The most hateful torment for men is to have knowledge of everything but power over nothing.
—Herodotus, c. 425 BC
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Quotes
All revolutions devour their own children.
—Ernst Röhm, 1933The life of the dead consists in the recollection cherished of them by the living.
—Marcus Tullius Cicero, 43 BCThe deed is everything, the glory naught.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1832The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.
—Maya Angelou, 1986To be a poet is to have a soul so quick to discern that no shade of quality escapes it, and so quick to feel that discernment is but a hand playing with finely ordered variety on the chords of emotion—a soul in which knowledge passes instantaneously into feeling, and feeling flashes back as a new organ of knowledge. One may have that condition by fits only.
—George Eliot, c. 1872Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.
—Ecclesiastes, c. 250 BCThe most fitting occupation for a civilized man is to do nothing.
—Théophile Gautier, c. 1835Spit not in the well; you may have to drink its water.
—French proverbOne is never as unhappy as one thinks, nor as happy as one hopes.
—La Rochefoucauld, 1664Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its brevity.
—Jean de La Bruyère, 1688People can say what they like about the eternal verities, love and truth and so on, but nothing’s as eternal as the dishes.
—Margaret Mahy, 1985Every ass thinks himself worthy to stand with the king’s horses.
—Gnomologia, 1732