Seaward ho! Hang the treasure! It’s the glory of the sea that has turned my head.
—Robert Louis Stevenson, 1883
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Quotes
Inventions that are not made, like babies that are not born, are rarely missed.
—John Kenneth Galbraith, 1958Of all the creatures that breathe and creep on the surface of the earth, none is more to be pitied than man.
—Homer, c. 750 BCAs far as I can see, the history of experimental art in the twentieth century is intimately bound up with the experience of intoxification.
—Will Self, 1994It would be madness, and inconsistency, to suppose that things which have never yet been performed can be performed without employing some hitherto untried means.
—Francis Bacon, 1620History does not merely touch on language, but takes place in it.
—Theodor Adorno, c. 1946Man is a troublesome animal and therefore is not very manageable.
—Plato, c. 349 BCLaughter almost ever cometh of things most disproportioned to ourselves and nature. Laughter hath only a scornful tickling.
—Philip Sidney, 1582When law can do no right,
Let it be lawful that law bar no wrong.
The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative on the day after the revolution.
—Hannah Arendt, 1970The traveler with nothing on him sings in the robber’s face.
—Juvenal, c. 125Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.
—Saint Augustine, c. 400We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.
—Jonathan Swift, 1706