Nothing so fortifies a friendship as a belief on the part of one friend that he is superior to the other.
—Honoré de Balzac, 1847
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Quotes
If we pretend to respect the artist at all, we must allow him his freedom of choice, in the face, in particular cases, of innumerable presumptions that the choice will not fructify. Art derives a considerable part of its beneficial exercise from flying in the face of presumptions.
—Henry James, 1884The best physician is he who can distinguish the possible from the impossible.
—Herophilus, c. 290 BCHappiness is no laughing matter.
—Richard Whately, 1843Whether for good or evil, it is sadly inevitable that all political leadership requires the artifices of theatrical illusion. In the politics of a democracy, the shortest distance between two points is often a crooked line.
—Arthur Miller, 2001And what will history say of me a thousand years hence?
—Marcus Tullius Cicero, 59 BCDiseases are not immutable entities but dynamic social constructions that have biographies of their own.
—Robert P. Hudson, 1983And, after all, what is a lie? ’Tis but the truth in masquerade.
—Lord Byron, 1822The earth is our existence, and our body is attached to the earth.
—Daulat Qazi, c. 1650What a glut of books! Who can read them? As already, we shall have a vast chaos and confusion of books; we are oppressed with them, our eyes ache with reading, our fingers with turning.
—Robert Burton, 1621It is impossible to translate the poets. Can you translate music?
—Voltaire, c. 1732However harmless a thing is, if the law forbids it, most people will think it wrong.
—W. Somerset Maugham, 1896A traveler’s chief aim should be to make men wiser and better, and to improve their minds by the bad—as well as good—example of what they deliver concerning foreign places.
—Jonathan Swift, 1726