One of the secrets of a happy life is continuous small treats.
—Iris Murdoch, 1978
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Quotes
There is no greater sorrow than to recall a happy time in the midst of wretchedness.
—Dante Alighieri, c. 1321I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast, for I intend to go in harm’s way.
—John Paul Jones, 1778Though the boys throw stones at frogs in sport, yet the frogs do not die in sport but in earnest.
—Bion of Smyrna, c. 100 BCLord, I do not ask that thou shouldst give me wealth; only show me where it is, and I will attend to the rest.
—Kate Douglas Wiggin, 1898‘Tis a superstition to insist on a special diet. All is made at last of the same chemical atoms.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1860He makes his cook his merit, and the world visits his dinners and not him.
—Molière, 1666It is hard when nature does not respect your intentions, and she never does exactly respect them.
—Wendell Berry, 1985Man must be doing something, or fancy that he is doing something, for in him throbs the creative impulse; the mere basker in the sunshine is not a natural, but an abnormal man.
—Henry George, 1879Far water cannot quench near fire.
—Japanese proverb“Abroad,” that large home of ruined reputations.
—George Eliot, 1866There is nothing that man fears more than the touch of the unknown. He wants to see what is reaching toward him and to be able to recognize or at least classify it. Man always tends to avoid physical contact with anything strange.
—Elias Canetti, 1960Like a broken gong be still, be silent. Know the stillness of freedom where there is no more striving.
—Siddhartha Gautama, c. 500 BC