The breaking of a wave cannot explain the whole sea.
—Vladimir Nabokov, 1941
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Quotes
Unexemplary words and unfounded doctrines are avoided by the noble person. Why utter them?
—Dong Zhongshu, c. 120 BCEveryone who is sick is someone else’s patient zero.
—Leslie Jamison, 2020And, after all, what is a lie? ’Tis but the truth in masquerade.
—Lord Byron, 1822Death from the bubonic plague is rated, with crucifixion, among the nastiest human experiences of all.
—Guy R. Williams, 1975The young man must store up, the old man must use.
—Seneca the Younger, c. 63If I had been born a man, I would have conquered Europe. As I was born a woman, I exhausted my energy in tirades against fate and in eccentricities.
—Marie Bashkirtseff, 1884Great inventors and discoverers seem to have made their discoveries and inventions, as it were, by the way, in the course of their everyday life.
—Elizabeth Charles, 1862The legislator is like the navigator of a ship on the high seas. He can steer the vessel on which he sails, but he cannot alter its construction, raise the wind, or stop the waves from swelling beneath his feet.
—Alexis de Tocqueville, 1835Knowledge is an ancient error reflecting on its youth.
—Francis Picabia, 1949The charm, one might say the genius, of memory is that it is choosy, chancy, and temperamental: it rejects the edifying cathedral and indelibly photographs the small boy outside, chawing a hunk of melon in the dust.
—Elizabeth Bowen, 1955A Jewish man with parents alive is a fifteen-year-old boy, and will remain a fifteen-year-old boy till they die!
—Philip Roth, 1969A human being must have occupation, if he or she is not to become a nuisance to the world.
—Dorothy L. Sayers, 1947