Archive

Quotes

Talk to me about the truth of religion and I’ll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I’ll listen submissively. But don’t come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don’t understand.

—C.S. Lewis, 1961

Toil is man’s allotment; toil of brain, or toil of hands, or a grief that’s more than either, the grief and sin of idleness.

—Herman Melville, 1849

One race there is of men, one of gods, but from one mother we both draw our breath.

—Pindar, c. 450 BC

He may be a patriot for Austria, but the question is whether he is a patriot for me.

—Emperor Francis Joseph, c. 1850

Understanding is a very dull occupation.

—Gertrude Stein, 1937

The great difficulty in education is to get experience out of ideas.

—George Santayana, 1905

Living is an ailment that is relieved every sixteen hours by sleep. A palliative. Death is the cure.

—Sébastien-Roch Nicolas Chamfort, c. 1790

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.

—Mario Cuomo, 1985

My face looks like a wedding cake left out in the rain.

—W.H. Auden, c. 1967

I never practice, I always play.

—Wanda Landowska, 1953

There is no blindness more insidious, more fatal, than this race for profit.

—Helen Keller, 1928

You may drive out nature with a pitchfork, yet she’ll be constantly running back.

—Horace, 20 BC

Whatsoever was the father of a disease, an ill diet was the mother.

—George Herbert, 1651