Do not lessen the time of following desire, for the wasting of time is an abomination to the spirit.
—Ptahhotep, c. 2350 BC
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Quotes
To be a successful father… there’s one absolute rule: when you have a kid, don’t look at it for the first two years.
—Ernest Hemingway, 1954The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. And I knew we’d get into that rotten stuff pretty soon. Probably at the next gas station.
—Hunter S. Thompson, 1971Death from the bubonic plague is rated, with crucifixion, among the nastiest human experiences of all.
—Guy R. Williams, 1975Those from whom we were born have long since departed, and those with whom we grew up exist only in memory. We, too, through the approach of death, become, as it were, trees growing on the sandy bank of a river.
—Bhartrihari, c. 400War is the child of pride, and pride the daughter of riches.
—Jonathan Swift, 1697We have to distrust each other. It is our only defense against betrayal.
—Tennessee Williams, 1953Money speaks sense in a language all nations understand.
—Aphra Behn, 1677We wish away whole years, and travel through time as through a country filled with many wild and empty wastes, which we would fain hurry over, that we may arrive at those several little settlements or imaginary points of rest which are dispersed up and down in it.
—Joseph Addison, 1711A fool’s brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence university education.
—George Bernard Shaw, 1903I detest war. It spoils armies.
—Grand Duke Constantine of Russia, c. 1820Gambling is the child of avarice, the brother of iniquity, and the father of mischief.
—George Washington, 1783The brain may be regarded as a kind of parasite of the organism, a pensioner, as it were, who dwells with the body.
—Arthur Schopenhauer, 1851