Archive

Quotes

’Tis a portentous sign / When a man sweats and at the same time shivers.

—Plautus, c. 180 BC

The fact is certain because it is impossible.

—Tertullian, c. 200

A world is sooner destroyed than made.

—Thomas Burnet, 1684

What can you conceive more silly and extravagant than to suppose a man racking his brains and studying night and day how to fly?

—William Law, 1728

The sea hath fish for every man.

—William Camden, 1605

Appearances often are deceiving.

—Aesop, c. 550 BC

More and more I like to take a train. I understand why the French prefer it to automobiling—it is so much more sociable, and of course these days so much more of an adventure, and the irregularity of its regularity is fascinating.

—Gertrude Stein, 1943

Good fortune is light as a feather, but nobody knows how to hold it up. Misfortune is heavy as the earth, but nobody knows how to stay out of its way.

—Zhuangzi, c. 300 BC

To put one’s trust in God is only a longer way of saying that one will chance it.

—Samuel Butler, c. 1890

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

—Italian proverb

The sole business of a seaman onshore who has to go to sea again is to take as much pleasure as he can.

—Leigh Hunt, 1820

The history of the world is the record of the weakness, frailty, and death of public opinion.

—Samuel Butler, c. 1902

I wants to make your flesh creep.

—Charles Dickens, 1837