Once something becomes discernible, or understandable, we no longer need to repeat it. We can destroy it.
—Robert Wilson, 1991
Archive
Quotes
Whenever in history equality appeared on the agenda, it was exported somewhere else, like an undesirable.
—Mary McCarthy, 1971I said of laughter, “It is mad,” and of pleasure, “What use is it?”
—Book of Ecclesiastes, 225 BCEvery man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.
—Arthur Schopenhauer, 1851Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.
—Shimon Peres, 1995The Mughal’s nature is such that they demand miracles, but if a miracle were to be performed by some upright follower of our religion, they would say that it had been brought about by magic and sorcery. They would strike him down with spears or would stone him to death.
—Fr. Antonio Monserrate, 1590Some of us would be greatly astonished to learn the reasons why others respect us.
—Marquis de Vauvenargues, 1746Diseases, at least many of them, are like human beings. They are born, they flourish, and they die.
—David Riesman, 1937Slang is as old as speech and the congregating together of people in cities. It is the result of crowding and excitement and artificial life.
—John Camden Hotten, 1859Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.
—Samuel Johnson, 1750Whether 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, 2001Show me someone who never gossips, and I’ll show you someone who isn’t interested in people.
—Barbara Walters, 1975All moanday, tearsday, wailsday, thumpsday, frightday, shatterday till the fear of the Law.
—James Joyce, 1939