Fire is a natural symbol of life and passion, though it is the one element in which nothing can actually live.
—Susanne K. Langer, 1942
Archive
Quotes
After all, crime is only a left-handed form of human endeavor.
—John Huston, 1950Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear.
—Albert Camus, c. 1940On no other stage are the scenes shifted with a swiftness so like magic as on the great stage of history when once the hour strikes.
—Edward Bellamy, 1888A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.
—Jane Austen, 1814I learned to make my mind large, as the universe is large, so that there is room for paradoxes.
—Maxine Hong Kingston, 1976Nothing is so easy as to deceive one’s self; for what we wish, that we readily believe.
—Demosthenes, 349 BCMan’s great mission is not to conquer nature by main force but to cooperate with her intelligently but lovingly for his own purposes.
—Lewis Mumford, 1962Seize from every moment its unique novelty, and do not prepare your joys.
—André Gide, 1897Art lives from constraints and dies from freedom.
—Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1480Not a change for the better in our human housekeeping has ever taken place that wise and good men have not opposed it—have not prophesied that the world would wake up to find its throat cut in consequence.
—James Russell Lowell, 1884More and more I like to take a train. I understand why the French prefer it to automobiling—it is so much more sociable, and of course these days so much more of an adventure, and the irregularity of its regularity is fascinating.
—Gertrude Stein, 1943If you would help another man, you must do so in minute particulars.
—William Blake, 1804