If the heavens were all parchment, and the trees of the forest all pens, and every human being were a scribe, it would still be impossible to record all that I have learned from my teachers.
—Jochanan ben Zakkai, c. 75
Archive
Quotes
A crust of bread and a corner to sleep in / A minute to smile and an hour to weep in.
—Paul Laurence Dunbar, 1895The only places where American medicine can fully live up to its possibilities are the teaching hospitals.
—Bernard De Voto, 1951Plagues are as certain as death and taxes.
—Richard Krause, 1982What reason weaves, by passion is undone.
—Alexander Pope, 1972Love is giving something you haven’t got to someone who doesn’t exist.
—Jacques LacanAnimals, in their generation, are wiser than the sons of men, but their wisdom is confined to a few particulars, and lies in a very narrow compass.
—Joseph Addison, 1711Some of us would be greatly astonished to learn the reasons why others respect us.
—Marquis de Vauvenargues, 1746Secrecy lies at the very core of power.
—Elias Canetti, 1960Science is a cemetery of dead ideas.
—Miguel de Unamuno, 1913A mind lively and at ease can do with seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not answer.
—Jane Austen, 1815What is death? A scary mask. Take it off—see, it doesn’t bite.
—Epictetus, c. 110However harmless a thing is, if the law forbids it, most people will think it wrong.
—W. Somerset Maugham, 1896