Seek not water, only show you are thirsty, / That water may spring up all around you.
—Rumi, c. 1260
Archive
Quotes
To desire immortality for the individual is really the same as wanting to perpetuate an error forever.
—Arthur Schopenhauer, 1819I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.
—Thomas Jefferson, 1816A god cannot procure death for himself, even if he wished it, which, so numerous are the evils of life, has been granted to man as our chief good.
—Pliny the Elder, c. 77Your piping-hot lie is the best of lies.
—Plautus, c. 200 BCSpit not in the well; you may have to drink its water.
—French proverbTo live on a day-to-day basis is insufficient for human beings; we need to transcend, transport, escape; we need meaning, understanding, and explanation.
—Oliver Sacks, 2012The main object of a revolution is the liberation of man, not the interpretation and application of some transcendental ideology.
—Jean Genet, 1983Slang 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, 1859He that would eat the nut must crack the shell.
—Plautus, c. 200 BCThe Revolution is made by man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit from day to day.
—Che Guevara, 1968There is no female mind. The brain is not an organ of sex. As well speak of a female liver.
—Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 1898It is a luxury to be understood.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1831