Archive

Quotes

No wise man ever wished to be younger.

—Jonathan Swift, 1706

Travelers, poets, and liars are three words all of one significance.

—Richard Brathwaite, 1631

The charm, one might say the genius, of memory is that it is choosy, chancy, and temperamental: it rejects the edifying cathedral and indelibly photographs the small boy outside, chawing a hunk of melon in the dust.

—Elizabeth Bowen, 1955

Secrets 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, 1998

A friend in power is a friend lost.

—Henry Adams, 1905

Better a thousand enemies outside the house than one inside.

—Arabic proverb

Politics is the art of the possible.

—Otto von Bismarck, 1867

In every ill turn of fortune, the most unhappy sort of unfortunate man is the one who has been happy.

—Boethius, c. 520

To live for a time close to great minds is the best kind of education.

—John Buchan, 1940

There is not so contemptible a plant or animal that does not confound the most enlarged understanding.

—John Locke, 1689

Recreations should be as sauces to your meat, to sharpen your appetite unto the duties of your calling, and not to glut yourselves with them.

—Thomas Gouge, 1672

Whatsoever was the father of a disease, an ill diet was the mother.

—George Herbert, 1651

Honest commerce is the great civilizer. We exchange ideas when we exchange fabrics.

—Robert G. Ingersoll, 1882