There is no greater disaster than not to know contentment.
—Laozi, c. 550 BC
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Quotes
A win always seems shallow: it is the loss that is so profound and suggests nasty infinities.
—E.M. Forster, 1919An irreligious man is not one who denies the gods of the majority, but one who applies to the gods the opinions of the majority. For what most men say about the gods are not ideas derived from sensation, but false opinions, according to which the greatest evils come to the wicked, and the greatest blessings come to the good from the gods.
—Epicurus, c. 250 BCI do desire we may be better strangers.
—William Shakespeare, 1600It’s the end of the world every day, for someone.
—Margaret Atwood, 2000One should always have one’s boots on and be ready to leave.
—Michel de Montaigne, 1580We cannot say what the woman might be physically, if the girl were not allowed all the freedom of the boy in romping, climbing, swimming, playing whoop and ball.
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 1848Life is a farce, and should not end with a mourning scene.
—Horace Walpole, 1784The unknown is the largest need of the intellect.
—Emily Dickinson, 1876We have to ask ourselves whether medicine is to remain a humanitarian and respected profession or a new but depersonalized science in the service of prolonging life rather than diminishing human suffering.
—Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, 1969The hatred of relatives is the bitterest.
—Tacitus, 117Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.
—John Wilkes Booth, 1865The purest joy is to live without disguise, unconstrained by the ties of a grave reputation.
—Al-Hariri, c. 1108