Happy is the man who hath never known what it is to taste of fame—to have it is a purgatory, to want it is a hell!
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1843
Archive
Quotes
The real problem of humanity is the following: we have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology.
—Edward O. Wilson, 2009We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea—whether it is to sail or to watch it—we are going back whence we came.
—John F. Kennedy, 1962The various modes of religion which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true, by the philosophers equally false, and by the magistrate as equally useful.
—Edward Gibbon, 1776Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a god.
—Jean Rostand, 1939What touches all shall be approved by all.
—Edward I, 1295If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
—Mark Twain, 1894The fact is certain because it is impossible.
—Tertullian, c. 200Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in the nineteenth century that one cannot explain away.
—Oscar Wilde, 1891Unfortunately, humanitarianism has been the mark of an inhuman time.
—G.K. Chesterton, 1932Suffering has its limit, but fears are endless.
—Pliny the Younger, c. 108Time’s ruins build eternity’s mansions.
—James Joyce, 1922The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.
—Charles Darwin, 1871