Archive

Quotes

Every house: temple, empire, school.

—Joseph Joubert, 1800

There is a sickness among tyrants: they cannot trust their friends.

—Aeschylus, c. 458 BC

It’s only the futility of the first flood that prevents God from sending a second.

—Sébastien-Roch Nicolas Chamfort, c. 1794

A good dog, sir, deserves a good bone.

—Ben Jonson, 1633

There is a vital force in rumor. Though crushed to earth, to all intents and purposes buried, it can rise again without apparent effort.

—Eleanor Robson Belmont, 1957

Luck is not something you can mention in the presence of self-made men.

—E.B. White, 1944

A crowded police court docket is the surest sign that trade is brisk and money plenty.

—Mark Twain, 1872

The law makes ten criminals where it restrains one.

—Voltairine de Cleyre, 1890

It is strange indeed that the more we learn about how to build health, the less healthy Americans become.

—Adelle Davis, 1951

Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

—Ambrose Bierce, 1906

All the married heiresses I have known have shipwrecked.

—Benjamin Disraeli, 1880

Diseases, at least many of them, are like human beings. They are born, they flourish, and they die.

—David Riesman, 1937

Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.

—Ambrose Bierce, 1906