Time’s violence rends the soul; by the rent eternity enters.
—Simone Weil, 1947
Archive
Quotes
Without virtue, both riches and honor, to me, seem like the passing cloud.
—Confucius, c. 350 BCThe deed is everything, the glory naught.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1832Drinking with women is as unnatural as scolding with ’em.
—William Wycherley, 1675It is very foolish to attack one’s enemy openly if one can injure him in secret.
—Giambattista Giraldi, 1543Those who give the first shock to a state are the first overwhelmed in its ruin; the fruits of public commotion are seldom enjoyed by him who was the first mover; he only beats the water for another’s net.
—Michel de Montaigne, 1580If the world were good for nothing else, it is a fine subject for speculation.
—William Hazlitt, 1823To achieve harmony in bad taste is the height of elegance.
—Jean Genet, 1949Being a star has made it possible for me to get insulted in places where the average Negro could never hope to go and get insulted.
—Sammy Davis Jr., 1965The right to the pursuit of happiness is nothing else than the right to disillusionment phrased in another way.
—Aldous Huxley, 1956The physician should look upon the patient as a besieged city and try to rescue him with every means that art and science place at his command.
—Alexander of Tralles, c. 600What timid man does not avoid contact with the sick, fearing lest he contract a disease so near?
—Ovid, c. 10All the married heiresses I have known have shipwrecked.
—Benjamin Disraeli, 1880