Archive

Quotes

My own experience is that a certain kind of genius among students is best brought out in bed.

—Allen Ginsberg, 1981

Diseases, at least many of them, are like human beings. They are born, they flourish, and they die.

—David Riesman, 1937

Man must be doing something, or fancy that he is doing something, for in him throbs the creative impulse; the mere basker in the sunshine is not a natural, but an abnormal man.

—Henry George, 1879

A woman should never be seen eating or drinking unless it be lobster salad and champagne, the only truly feminine and becoming viands.

—Lord Byron, 1812

There is nothing that man fears more than the touch of the unknown. He wants to see what is reaching toward him and to be able to recognize or at least classify it. Man always tends to avoid physical contact with anything strange.

—Elias Canetti, 1960

Be courteous to all but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence.

—George Washington, 1783

The drunken man is a living corpse.

—St. John Chrysostom, c. 390

The successful revolutionary is a statesman, the unsuccessful one a criminal.

—Erich Fromm, 1941

I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark.

—Thomas Hobbes, 1679

Quarrels would not last long if the fault was only on one side.

—La Rochefoucauld, 1665

Alas! We are ridiculous animals.

—Horace Walpole, 1777

Such then is the human state, that to wish greatness for one’s country is to wish harm to one’s neighbors.

—Voltaire, 1764

I’m president of the United States, and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli!

—George H. W. Bush, 1990