I hate the present modes of living and getting a living. Farming and shopkeeping and working at a trade or profession are all odious to me. I should relish getting my living in a simple, primitive fashion.
—Henry David Thoreau, 1855
Archive
Quotes
Why listen to me? I can only predict epidemics and plagues.
—Larry Kramer, 1992I think heaven will not be as good as earth, unless it bring with it that sweet power to remember, which is the staple of heaven here.
—Emily Dickinson, 1879Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live.
—Socrates, c. 430 BCI imagine that one of the first forms of behavior, like one of the first signals, may be reduced to this: “Keep me warm.”
—Michel Serres, 1982It would be impossible to live for a year without disaster unless one practiced character-reading.
—Virginia Woolf, 1924All men that are ruined, are ruined on the side of their natural propensities.
—Edmund Burke, 1796There ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.
—Mark Twain, 1894Money is a language for translating the work of the farmer into the work of the barber, doctor, engineer, or plumber.
—Marshall McLuhan, 1964I am a man: I consider nothing human alien to me.
—Terence, 163 BCMusic melts all the separate parts of our bodies together.
—Anaïs Nin, 1939Those who believe in freedom of the will have never loved and never hated.
—Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, 1893The fascination of shooting as a sport depends almost wholly on whether you are at the right or wrong end of a gun.
—P.G. Wodehouse, 1929