From a man’s face, I can read his character. If I can see him walk, I know his thoughts.
—Gaius Petronius Arbiter, c. 60
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Quotes
We often give our enemies the means for our own destruction.
—Aesop, c. 600 BCTo know intense joy without a strong bodily frame, one must have an enthusiastic soul.
—George Eliot, 1872Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
—Benjamin Franklin, 1755Laughter always arises from a gaiety of disposition, absolutely incompatible with contempt and indignation.
—Voltaire, 1736Whole nations have melted away like balls of snow before the sun.
—Dragging Canoe, 1775The drunken man is a living corpse.
—St. John Chrysostom, c. 390Many, many steeples would have to be stacked one on top of another to reach from the bottom to the surface of the sea. It is down there that the sea folk live.
—Hans Christian Andersen, 1837Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1906Opposition may become sweet to a man when he has christened it persecution.
—George Eliot, 1857The Founding Fathers in their wisdom decided that children were an unnatural strain on parents. So they provided jails called schools, equipped with tortures called an education. School is where you go between when your parents can’t take you and industry can’t take you.
—John Updike, 1963Men are what their mothers made them.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1860It would be impossible to live for a year without disaster unless one practiced character-reading.
—Virginia Woolf, 1924