The chief merit of language is clearness, and we know that nothing detracts so much from this as do unfamiliar terms.
—Galen, c. 175
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Quotes
To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life.
—Walter Pater, 1873We should always presume the disease to be curable until its own nature proves it otherwise.
—Peter Mere Latham, c. 1845Who hears the fishes when they cry?
—Henry David Thoreau, 1849He that commands the sea is at great liberty and may take as much and as little of the war as he will.
—Francis Bacon, c. 1600I do love cricket—it’s so very English.
—Sarah Bernhardt, c. 1908My face looks like a wedding cake left out in the rain.
—W.H. Auden, c. 1967There are truths that prove their discoverers witless.
—Karl Kraus, 1909The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure it is right.
—Judge Learned Hand, 1944What reason weaves, by passion is undone.
—Alexander Pope, 1972There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.
—Arthur Conan Doyle, 1891One may like the love and despise the lover.
—George Farquhar, 1706Again, men in general desire the good, and not merely what their fathers had.
—Aristotle, c. 350 BC