Memory is like the moon, which hath its new, its full, and its wane.
—Margaret Cavendish, 1655Quotes
What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham.
—Frederick Douglass, 1855A hick town is one where there is no place to go where you shouldn’t go.
—Alexander Woollcott, c. 1935Friendship is a plant that loves the sun—thrives ill under clouds.
—Bronson Alcott, 1872There’s plenty of water in the universe without life, but nowhere is there life without water.
—Sylvia Alice Earle, 1995Man’s great mission is not to conquer nature by main force but to cooperate with her intelligently but lovingly for his own purposes.
—Lewis Mumford, 1962Time’s ruins build eternity’s mansions.
—James Joyce, 1922Every country has the government it deserves.
—Joseph de Maistre, 1811Don’t lose your mind unless you have paid for it.
—Stanisław Jerzy Lec, 1957The human body is the best picture of the human soul.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein, c. 1947The self is like an infant: given free rein, it craves to suckle.
—al-Busiri, c. 1250The sea hath fish for every man.
—William Camden, 1605The successful revolutionary is a statesman, the unsuccessful one a criminal.
—Erich Fromm, 1941