Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.
—G.K. Chesterton, 1928
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Quotes
Medication alone is not to be relied on. In one half the cases medicine is not needed, or is worse than useless. Obedience to spiritual and physical laws—hygiene of the body and hygiene of the spirit—is the surest warrant for health and happiness.
—Harriot K. Hunt, 1856All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.
—Toni Morrison, 1987What 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, 1728There was no treachery too base for the world to commit.
—Virginia Woolf, 1927I was born without knowing why, I have lived without knowing why, and I am dying without either knowing why or how.
—Pierre Gassendi, 1655War is the child of pride, and pride the daughter of riches.
—Jonathan Swift, 1697A dissolute and intemperate youth hands down the body to old age in a worn-out state.
—Cicero, 44 BCEpitaph, n. An inscription on a tomb, showing that virtues acquired by death have a retroactive effect.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1906Flesh was the reason why oil painting was invented.
—Willem de Kooning, 1949A machine is a slave that neither brings nor bears degradation.
—Benjamin Disraeli, 1844Nothing is so easy as to deceive one’s self; for what we wish, that we readily believe.
—Demosthenes, 349 BCWithout music life would be a mistake.
—Friedrich Nietzsche, 1889