We wish away whole years, and travel through time as through a country filled with many wild and empty wastes, which we would fain hurry over, that we may arrive at those several little settlements or imaginary points of rest which are dispersed up and down in it.
—Joseph Addison, 1711
Archive
Quotes
There is nothing that man fears more than the touch of the unknown. He wants to see what is reaching toward him and to be able to recognize or at least classify it. Man always tends to avoid physical contact with anything strange.
—Elias Canetti, 1960Revolutions are celebrated when they are no longer dangerous.
—Pierre Boulez, 1989At the worst, a house unkept cannot be so distressing as a life unlived.
—Rose Macaulay, 1925The surest guide to the correctness of the path that women take is joy in the struggle. Revolution is the festival of the oppressed.
—Germaine Greer, 1970The young always have the same problem—how to rebel and conform at the same time. They have now solved this by defying their elders and copying one another.
—Quentin Crisp, 1968One may like the love and despise the lover.
—George Farquhar, 1706I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again: your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.
—Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1940If a king loves music, there is little wrong in the land.
—Mencius, c. 330 BCSome of us would be greatly astonished to learn the reasons why others respect us.
—Marquis de Vauvenargues, 1746A dog starved at his master’s gate / Predicts the ruin of the state.
—William Blake, 1807No lyric poems live long or please many people which are written by drinkers of water.
—Horace, 20 BCThe first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.
—Dean Acheson, 1970