The future comes like an unwelcome guest.
—Edmund Gosse, 1873
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Quotes
Will and energy sometimes prove greater than either genius or talent or temperament.
—Isadora Duncan, c. 1902Night affords the most convenient shade for works of darkness.
—John Taylor, 1750If law and justice do not attain their ends, the people will be unable to move hand or foot.
—Confucius, c. 500Our nature lies in movement; complete calm is death.
—Blaise Pascal, c. 1640There never was a good war or a bad peace.
—Benjamin Franklin, 1773Methinks the human method of expression by sound of tongue is very elementary and ought to be substituted for some ingenious invention which should be able to give vent to at least six coherent sentences at once.
—Virginia Woolf, 1899Politics is the art of the possible.
—Otto von Bismarck, 1867We must confess that at present the rich predominate, but the future will be for the virtuous and ingenious.
—Jean de La Bruyère, 1688We all have a contract with the public—in us they see themselves, or what they would like to be.
—Clark Gable, 1935Seize from every moment its unique novelty, and do not prepare your joys.
—André Gide, 1897Journeys, 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“I think, therefore I am” is the statement of an intellectual who underrates toothaches.
—Milan Kundera, 1990