Anyone who in discussion quotes authority uses his memory rather than his intellect.
—Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1500
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Quotes
If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great streetsweeper that did his job well.
—Martin Luther King Jr., 1954You can’t find the soul with a scalpel.
—Gustave Flaubert, c. 1880Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.
—Herman Melville, 1851The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.
—Dean Acheson, 1970Hoping for new friendship from old enemies is / Like expecting to find a rose in a furnace.
—Muhammad Baqir Najm-i Sani, 1612A tremendous number of people in America work very hard at something that bores them. Even a rich man thinks he has to go down to the office everyday. Not because he likes it but because he can’t think of anything else to do.
—W.H. Auden, 1946One of the secrets of a happy life is continuous small treats.
—Iris Murdoch, 1978The passion for setting people right is in itself an afflictive disease.
—Marianne Moore, 1935One of the saddest things is that the only thing that a man can do for eight hours a day, day after day, is work. You can’t eat eight hours a day, nor drink for eight hours a day, nor make love for eight hours.
—William Faulkner, 1958Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.
—Rudy Giuliani, 1999O citizens, first acquire wealth; you can practice virtue afterward.
—Horace, c. 8 BCThe period is not very remote when the benefits of a liberal and free commerce will, pretty generally, succeed to the devastations and horrors of war.
—George Washington, 1786