O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes.
—William Shakespeare, c. 1599
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Quotes
A merchant shall hardly keep himself from doing wrong.
—Ecclesiasticus, c. 180 BCMy ideas are clear. My orders are precise. Within five years, Rome must appear marvelous to all the people of the world—vast, orderly, powerful, as in the time of the empire of Augustus.
—Benito Mussolini, 1929In our family, as far as we are concerned, we were born and what happened before that is myth.
—V.S. Pritchett, 1968Good fortune turns aside destruction by a great god.
—Instructions of Ankhsheshonqy, c. 100 BCTo put one’s trust in God is only a longer way of saying that one will chance it.
—Samuel Butler, c. 1890Rejoice, young man, while you are young, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Follow the inclination of your heart and the desire of your eyes, but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.
—Book of Ecclesiastes, c. 200 BCHealth can make money, but money cannot make health.
—Maria Edgeworth, 1833He who is afraid of his own memories is cowardly, really cowardly.
—Elias Canetti, 1954The transition from tenseness, self-responsibility, and worry to equanimity, receptivity, and peace is the most wonderful of all those shiftings of inner equilibrium, those changes of personal center of energy.
—William James, 1902’Tis the sport to have the engineer / Hoist with his own petard.
—William Shakespeare, c. 1600It would seem that in history it’s never a tooth for a tooth, but a thousand, a hundred thousand for one.
—Sybille Bedford, 1963From a man’s face, I can read his character. If I can see him walk, I know his thoughts.
—Gaius Petronius Arbiter, c. 60