To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual.
—Oscar Wilde, 1891
Archive
Quotes
Every adolescent has that dream every century has that dream every revolutionary has that dream, to destroy the family.
—Gertrude Stein, 1940Those who trust to chance must abide by the results of chance.
—Calvin Coolidge, 1932The world is for thousands a freak show; the images flicker past and vanish.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1776This is not a clash between civilizations. It is a clash about civilization.
—Tony Blair, 2006One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.
—Virginia Woolf, 1929The boy is, of all wild beasts, the most difficult to manage.
—Plato, c. 348 BCAnimals are in possession of themselves; their soul is in possession of their body. But they have no right to their life, because they do not will it.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, 1821Enemies to me are the sauce piquant to my dish of life.
—Elsa Maxwell, 1955The root of the kingdom is in the State. The root of the State is in the family. The root of the family is in the person of its Head.
—Mencius, c. 270 BCI have loved war too well.
—Louis XIV, 1715Epitaph, n. An inscription on a tomb, showing that virtues acquired by death have a retroactive effect.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1906There will always be a lost dog somewhere that will prevent me from being happy.
—Jean Anouilh, 1934