Time is a veil interposed between God and ourselves, as our eyelid is between our eye and the light.
—François-René de Chateaubriand, c. 1820
Archive
Quotes
Man is a troublesome animal and therefore is not very manageable.
—Plato, c. 349 BCThe basis of optimism is sheer terror.
—Oscar Wilde, 1891Tomorrow never comes, man. It’s all the same fucking day.
—Janis Joplin, 1972I’d like to be a machine, wouldn’t you?
—Andy Warhol, 1963The distinction between children and adults, while probably useful for some purposes, is at bottom a specious one, I feel. There are only individual egos, crazy for love.
—Donald Barthelme, 1964I am a friend of the workingman, and I would rather be his friend than be one.
—Clarence Darrow, 1932All men naturally hate each other. We have used concupiscence as best we can to make it serve the common good, but this is mere sham and a false image of charity, for essentially it is just hate.
—Blaise Pascal, c. 1655Uprootedness is by far the most dangerous malady to which human societies are exposed, for it is a self-propagating one.
—Simone Weil, 1943Rain is grace; rain is the sky condescending to the earth; without rain there would be no life.
—John Updike, 1989No human life, not even the life of a hermit, is possible without a world which directly or indirectly testifies to the presence of other human beings.
—Hannah Arendt, 1958Idolatry is the mother of all games.
—Novatian, c. 255In life our absent friend is far away: / But death may bring our friend exceeding near.
—Christina Rossetti, 1881