Friendship itself will not stand the strain of very much good advice for very long.
—Robert Wilson Lynd, 1924
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Quotes
Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.
—Ecclesiastes, c. 250 BCThe poets did well to conjoin music and medicine, because the office of medicine is but to tune the curious harp of man’s body.
—Francis Bacon, 1605He who treats another human being as divine thereby assigns to himself the relative status of a child or an animal.
—E. R. Dodds, 1951Sex and drugs and rock and roll.
—Ian Dury, 1977If not us, who? If not now, when?
—Czech slogan, 1989Seaward ho! Hang the treasure! It’s the glory of the sea that has turned my head.
—Robert Louis Stevenson, 1883He that would eat the nut must crack the shell.
—Plautus, c. 200 BCEvery man has a lurking wish to appear considerable in his native place.
—Samuel Johnson, 1771I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigrees of nations.
—Samuel Johnson, 1773If the human race wants to go to hell in a basket, technology can help it get there by jet.
—Charles M. Allen, 1967If we pretend to respect the artist at all, we must allow him his freedom of choice, in the face, in particular cases, of innumerable presumptions that the choice will not fructify. Art derives a considerable part of its beneficial exercise from flying in the face of presumptions.
—Henry James, 1884It would be madness, and inconsistency, to suppose that things which have never yet been performed can be performed without employing some hitherto untried means.
—Francis Bacon, 1620