Man must be doing something, or fancy that he is doing something, for in him throbs the creative impulse; the mere basker in the sunshine is not a natural, but an abnormal man.
—Henry George, 1879
Archive
Quotes
A regime which combines perpetual surveillance with total indulgence is hardly conducive to healthy development.
—P.D. James, 1992One form of loneliness is to have a memory and no one to share it with.
—Phyllis Rose, 1991Technology feeds on itself. Technology makes more technology possible.
—Alvin Toffler, 1970The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a star.
—Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, 1825The earth is beautiful and bright and kindly, but that is not all. The earth is also terrible and dark and cruel.
—Ursula K. Le Guin, 1970The chief merit of language is clearness, and we know that nothing detracts so much from this as do unfamiliar terms.
—Galen, c. 175Nature’s rules have no exceptions.
—Herbert Spencer, 1851Modern life is often a mechanical oppression, and liquor is the only mechanical relief.
—Ernest Hemingway, 1935Avoid the talk of men. For talk is mischievous, light, and easily raised, but hard to bear and difficult to be rid of. Talk never wholly dies away when many people voice her: even talk is in some ways divine.
—Hesiod, c. 700 BCMen have an extraordinarily erroneous opinion of their position in nature; and the error is ineradicable.
—W. Somerset Maugham, 1896I am sick and tired of publicity. I want no more of it. It puts me in a bad light. I just want to be forgotten.
—Al Capone, 1929We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language.
—Oscar Wilde, 1887