There are truths that prove their discoverers witless.
—Karl Kraus, 1909
Archive
Quotes
I imagined it was more difficult to die.
—Louis XIV, 1715Man punishes the action, but God the intention.
—Thomas Fuller, 1732Every man is worth just so much as the things he busies himself with.
—Marcus Aurelius, c. 175Medication 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“I think, therefore I am” is the statement of an intellectual who underrates toothaches.
—Milan Kundera, 1990The sea hath no king but God alone.
—Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1881The most fitting occupation for a civilized man is to do nothing.
—Théophile Gautier, c. 1835Misfortune, n. The kind of fortune that never misses.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1906Bereavement is a darkness impenetrable to the imagination of the unbereaved.
—Iris Murdoch, 1974People can say what they like about the eternal verities, love and truth and so on, but nothing’s as eternal as the dishes.
—Margaret Mahy, 1985Nature contains no one constant form.
—Paul-Henri Dietrich d’Holbach, 1770The belly is the teacher of the arts and bestower of invention.
—Persius, c. 55