An American will build a house in which to pass his old age and sell it before the roof is on.
—Alexis de Tocqueville, 1840
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Quotes
There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.
—Arthur Conan Doyle, 1891He who would have clear water should go to the fountainhead.
—Italian proverbThe sea serves the pirate as well as the trader.
—Prudentius, c. 405Alcohol is the monarch of liquids.
—Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, 1825There are two things that will be believed of any man whatsoever, and one of them is that he has taken to drink.
—Booth Tarkington, 1914I have sometimes thought that the laws ought not to punish those actions of evil which are committed when the senses are steeped in intoxication.
—Walt Whitman, 1842Business? Why, it’s very simple; business is other people’s money.
—Alexandre Dumas, 1857One has to spend so many years in learning how to be happy.
—George Eliot, 1844Carnal embrace is the practice of throwing one’s arms around a side of beef.
—Tom Stoppard, 1993It is impossible to please all the world and one’s father.
—Jean de La Fontaine, 1668By night an atheist half believes a God.
—Edward Young, c. 1745To live exiled from a place you have known intimately is to experience sensory deprivation. A wide-awake coma.
—Gretel Ehrlich, 1994