Archive

Quotes

Infectious disease is one of the few genuine adventures left in the world.

—Hans Zinsser, 1935

There is no blindness more insidious, more fatal, than this race for profit.

—Helen Keller, 1928

A family’s photograph album is generally about the extended family—and, often, is all that remains of it.

—Susan Sontag, 1977

People 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, 1985

The only function of a school is to make self-education easier.

—Isaac Asimov, 1974

Journeys, like artists, are born and not made. A thousand differing circumstances contribute to them, few of them willed or determined by the will—whatever we may think.

—Lawrence Durrell, 1957

The path of social advancement is, and must be, strewn with broken friendships.

—H.G. Wells, 1905

The period is not very remote when the benefits of a liberal and free commerce will, pretty generally, succeed to the devastations and horrors of war.

—George Washington, 1786

Africa has her mysteries, and even a wise man cannot understand them. But a wise man respects them.

—Miriam Makeba, 1988

Watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you, because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.

—Roald Dahl, 1990

The happiness of society is the end of government.

—John Adams, 1776

Almsgiving tends to perpetuate poverty; aid does away with it once and for all.

—Eva Perón, 1949

In peace, children inter their parents; war violates the order of nature and causes parents to inter their children.

—Herodotus, 440 BC