Archive

Quotes

God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December.

—J.M. Barrie, 1922

Hang work! I wish that all the year were holiday; I am sure that Indolence—indefeasible Indolence—is the true state of man.

—Charles Lamb, 1805

The power which the sea requires in the sailor makes a man of him very fast, and the change of shores and population clears his head of much nonsense of his wigwam.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1870

Nothing is so easy as to deceive one’s self; for what we wish, that we readily believe.

—Demosthenes, 349 BC

They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.

—Francis Bacon, 1605

I’m doomed to die, right? Why should I care if I go to Hades either with gout in my leg or a runner’s grace? Plenty of people will carry me there.

—Nicharchus, c. 90

Animals are good to think with.

—Claude Lévi-Strauss, 1962

I am a living symbol of the white man’s fear.

—Winnie Mandela, 1985

A good dog, sir, deserves a good bone.

—Ben Jonson, 1633

There is only one antidote to mental suffering and that is physical pain.

—Karl Marx, 1860

When you have only two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other.

—Chinese proverb

All of the great musicians have borrowed from the songs of the common people.

—Antonín Dvořák, 1893

Sanity is madness put to good uses; waking life is a dream controlled.

—George Santayana, 1920