I sometimes think of what future historians will say of us. A single sentence will suffice for modern man: he fornicated and read the papers.
—Albert Camus, 1957
Archive
Quotes
Animals are good to think with.
—Claude Lévi-Strauss, 1962It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street.
—Mary Lease, c. 1890As to the sea itself, love it you cannot. Why should you? I will never believe again the sea was ever loved by anyone whose life was married to it. It is the creation of omnipotence, which is not of humankind and understandable, and so the springs of its behavior are hidden.
—H.M. Tomlinson, 1912Happy is the man who hath never known what it is to taste of fame—to have it is a purgatory, to want it is a hell!
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1843You can’t find the soul with a scalpel.
—Gustave Flaubert, c. 1880Let the young know they will never find a more interesting, more instructive book than the patient himself.
—Giorgio Baglivi, c. 1696There are two things that will be believed of any man whatsoever, and one of them is that he has taken to drink.
—Booth Tarkington, 1914While gossip among women is universally ridiculed as low and trivial, gossip among men, especially if it is about women, is called theory, or idea, or fact.
—Andrea Dworkin, 1983Tomorrow never comes, man. It’s all the same fucking day.
—Janis Joplin, 1972Time’s violence rends the soul; by the rent eternity enters.
—Simone Weil, 1947The king times are fast finishing. There will be blood shed like water, and tears like mist; but the peoples will conquer in the end.
—Lord Byron, 1821Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing—the rest is mere sheep herding.
—Ezra Pound, 1934