I take it as a prime cause of the present confusion of society that it is too sickly and too doubtful to use pleasure frankly as a test of value.
—Rebecca West, 1939
Archive
Quotes
Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve and from which he cannot escape.
—Erich Fromm, 1947All of the great musicians have borrowed from the songs of the common people.
—Antonín Dvořák, 1893There is no greater disaster than not to know contentment.
—Laozi, c. 550 BCThe appointed thing comes at the appointed time in the appointed way.
—Myrtle Reed, 1910Life is no way to treat an animal.
—Kurt Vonnegut, 2005We should have a great many fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things themselves.
—John Locke, 1690Time rushes toward us with its hospital tray of infinitely varied narcotics, even while it is preparing us for its inevitably fatal operation.
—Tennessee Williams, 1951Men are merriest when they are from home.
—William Shakespeare, 1599Avoid 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 BCAll water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.
—Toni Morrison, 1987The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes “sightseeing.”
—Daniel Boorstin, 1961As man disappears from sight, the land remains.
—Maori proverb