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Quotes

All God’s children are not beautiful. Most of God’s children are, in fact, barely presentable.

—Fran Lebowitz, 1978

The life of the dead consists in the recollection cherished of them by the living.

—Marcus Tullius Cicero, 43 BC

That which is evil is soon learned. 

—John Ray, 1670

Big head, little wit.

—French proverb

He who would have clear water should go to the fountainhead.

—Italian proverb

Avoid the talk of men. For talk is mischievous, light, and easily raised, but hard to bear and difficult to be rid of. Talk never wholly dies away when many people voice her: even talk is in some ways divine.

—Hesiod, c. 700 BC

All art is a revolt against man’s fate.

—André Malraux, 1951

Music today is nothing more than the art of performing difficult pieces.

—Voltaire, 1759

The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes “sightseeing.”

—Daniel Boorstin, 1961

Laughter almost ever cometh of things most disproportioned to ourselves and nature. Laughter hath only a scornful tickling.

—Philip Sidney, 1582

It is one thing to slander, another to accuse.

—Marcus Tullius Cicero, 56 BC

Pride and excess bring disaster for man.

—Xunzi, 250 BC

The more sifted, the finer the flour; the more often repeated, the rougher the gossip.

—Korean proverb