To eat is to appropriate by destruction.
—Jean-Paul Sartre, 1943
Archive
Quotes
Opposition may become sweet to a man when he has christened it persecution.
—George Eliot, 1857The one thing the world will never have enough of is the outrageous.
—Salvador Dalí, 1953We possess art lest we perish of the truth.
—Friedrich Nietzsche, 1887A 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, 1987To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.
—Oscar Wilde, 1891I would much rather have men ask why I have no statue than why I have one.
—Cato the Elder, c. 184 BCIt is He who has subdued the ocean so that you may eat of its fresh fish and bring up from its depth ornaments to wear. Behold the ships plowing their course through it. All this, that you may seek His bounty and render thanks.
—The Qur’an, c. 625Any city, however small, is in fact divided into two, one the city of the poor, the other of the rich; these are at war with one another.
—Plato, c. 378 BCThe distinction between children and adults, while probably useful for some purposes, is at bottom a specious one, I feel. There are only individual egos, crazy for love.
—Donald Barthelme, 1964I order that my funeral ceremonies be extremely modest, and that they take place at dawn or at the evening Ave Maria, without song or music.
—Giuseppe Verdi, 1900The man in constant fear is every day condemned.
—Publilius Syrus, c. 50 BCFriendship is a plant that loves the sun—thrives ill under clouds.
—Bronson Alcott, 1872