Archive

Quotes

Revolutions are not made by men in spectacles.

—Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1871

The sea yields action to the body, meditation to the mind, the world to the world, all parts thereof to each part, by this art of arts—navigation.

—Samuel Purchas, 1613

The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.

—Laozi

As the saying goes, an old woman is always uneasy when dry bones are mentioned in a proverb.

—Chinua Achebe, 1958

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.

—Galileo Galilei, 1615

Necessity knows no law except to conquer.

—Publilius Syrus, c. 50 BC

God seems to have left the receiver off the hook, and time is running out.

—Arthur Koestler, 1967

Life isn’t all beer and skittles, but beer and skittles, or something better of the same sort, must form a good part of every Englishman’s education.

—Thomas Hughes, 1857

Medication alone is not to be relied on. In one half the cases medicine is not needed, or is worse than useless. Obedience to spiritual and physical laws—hygiene of the body and hygiene of the spirit—is the surest warrant for health and happiness.

—Harriot K. Hunt, 1856

What a torture to talk to filled heads that allow nothing from the outside to enter them.

—Joseph Joubert, 1807

No law is sufficiently convenient to all.

—Roman proverb

It’s good to remember that in crises, natural crises, human beings forget for a while their ignorances, their biases, their prejudices. For a little while, neighbors help neighbors and strangers help strangers.

—Maya Angelou, 2011

It hurts to watch the fluency of a body acclimated to its shackling.

—Leslie Jamison, 2014