No poems can please long, nor live, that are written by water drinkers.
—Horace, 35 BC
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Quotes
What a glut of books! Who can read them? As already, we shall have a vast chaos and confusion of books; we are oppressed with them, our eyes ache with reading, our fingers with turning.
—Robert Burton, 1621We get a deal o’ useless things about us, only because we’ve got the money to spend.
—George Eliot, 1860Drinking with women is as unnatural as scolding with ’em.
—William Wycherley, 1675I think that to get under the surface and really appreciate the beauty of any country, one has to go there poor.
—Grace Moore, 1944In the case of news, we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation.
—Voltaire, 1764Where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experiment.
—George Santayana, c. 1905Democracy is the fig leaf of elitism.
—Florence King, 1989It was funny how I could feel all alone and under surveillance at the same time.
—Cory Doctorow, 2013I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas and land on barbarous coasts.
—Herman Melville, 1853Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need—a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing.
—Jerome K. Jerome, 1889Even members of the nobility, let alone persons of no consequence, would do well not to have children.
—Yoshida Kenko, c. 1330Cheating is more honorable than stealing.
—German proverb