Jests and scoffs do lessen majesty and greatness and should be far from great personages and men of wisdom.
—Henry Peacham, 1622
Archive
Quotes
Under the pressure of the cares and sorrows of our mortal condition, men have at all times and in all countries, called in some physical aid to their moral consolations—wine, beer, opium, brandy, or tobacco.
—Edmund Burke, 1795The desire of knowledge, like the thirst of riches, increases ever with the acquisition of it.
—Laurence Sterne, 1760I am not Athenian or Greek but a citizen of the world.
—Socrates, c. 420 BCThe mill will never grind with water that is past.
—Daniel McCallum, 1870If the bird does like its cage, and does like its sugar, and will not leave it, why keep the door so very carefully shut?
—Olive Schreiner, 1883In America, everybody is, but some are more than others.
—Gertrude Stein, 1937We wish away whole years, and travel through time as through a country filled with many wild and empty wastes, which we would fain hurry over, that we may arrive at those several little settlements or imaginary points of rest which are dispersed up and down in it.
—Joseph Addison, 1711If people think Nature is their friend, then they sure don’t need an enemy.
—Kurt Vonnegut, 1988An ape will be an ape, though clad in purple.
—Erasmus, 1511Secrets define us, they mark us, they set us apart from all the others. The secrets which we preserve provide a key to who we are, deep down.
—Nuruddin Farah, 1998Technology is so much fun, but we can drown in our technology. The fog of information can drive out knowledge.
—Daniel Boorstin, 1978For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
—Richard Feynman, 1986