Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1921
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Quotes
When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber.
—Winston Churchill, 1945Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.
—Jane Austen, 1818However harmless a thing is, if the law forbids it, most people will think it wrong.
—W. Somerset Maugham, 1896Imagine a number of men in chains, all under sentence of death, some of whom are each day butchered in the sight of the others; those remaining see their own condition in that of their fellows and, looking at each other with grief and despair, await their turn. This is an image of the human condition.
—Blaise Pascal, 1669Avoid the talk of men. For talk is mischievous, light, and easily raised, but hard to bear and difficult to be rid of. Talk never wholly dies away when many people voice her: even talk is in some ways divine.
—Hesiod, c. 700 BCThe snotgreen sea. The scrotumtightening sea.
—James Joyce, 1922A self-made man is one who believes in luck and sends his son to Oxford.
—Christina Stead, 1938Make human nature your study wherever you reside—whatever the religion or the complexion, study their hearts.
—Ignatius Sancho, 1778Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands, and goes to work.
—Carl Sandburg, 1959The features of our face are hardly more than gestures which force of habit has made permanent.
—Marcel Proust, 1919Traveling is like flirting with life. It’s like saying, “I would stay here and love you, but I have to go; this is my station.”
—Lisa St. Aubin de Terán, 1989Happiness, whether in business or private life, leaves very little trace in history.
—Fernand Braudel, 1979