Any serious attempt to do anything worthwhile is ritualistic.
—Derek Walcott, 1986
Archive
Quotes
When action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep.
—Ursula K. Le Guin, 1969God seems to have left the receiver off the hook, and time is running out.
—Arthur Koestler, 1967It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.
—Frederick Douglass, 1852What keeps the democracy alive at all but the hatred of excellence, the desire of the base to see no head higher than their own?
—Mary Renault, 1956The strength of a family, like the strength of an army, is in its loyalty to each other.
—Mario Puzo, 2001Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.
—Aleister Crowley, 1904I imagine that one of the first forms of behavior, like one of the first signals, may be reduced to this: “Keep me warm.”
—Michel Serres, 1982I want to be the white man’s brother, not his brother-in-law.
—Martin Luther King Jr., 1962Men are what their mothers made them.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1860A family’s photograph album is generally about the extended family—and, often, is all that remains of it.
—Susan Sontag, 1977Despotism achieves great things illegally; democracy doesn’t even take the trouble to achieve small things legally.
—Honoré de Balzac, 1831The self is like an infant: given free rein, it craves to suckle.
—al-Busiri, c. 1250