Archive

Quotes

Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.

—Gore Vidal, 1973

A win always seems shallow: it is the loss that is so profound and suggests nasty infinities.

—E.M. Forster, 1919

Any serious attempt to do anything worthwhile is ritualistic.

—Derek Walcott, 1986

Perish the universe, provided I have my revenge.

—Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac, 1654

Think where man’s glory most begins and ends, / And say my glory was I had such friends.

—W.B. Yeats, 1937

The mere existence of nuclear weapons by the thousands is an incontrovertible sign of human insanity.

—Isaac Asimov, 1988

Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world: it gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel. The picture of free, untrammeled womanhood.

—Susan B. Anthony, 1896

I think it makes small difference to the dead if they are buried in the tokens of luxury. All this is an empty glorification left for those who live.

—Euripides, 415 BC

Medication alone is not to be relied on. In one half the cases medicine is not needed, or is worse than useless. Obedience to spiritual and physical laws—hygiene of the body and hygiene of the spirit—is the surest warrant for health and happiness.

—Harriot K. Hunt, 1856

Every thought is, strictly speaking, an afterthought.

—Hannah Arendt, 1978

There is only one antidote to mental suffering and that is physical pain.

—Karl Marx, 1860

Who draws his sword against his prince must throw away the scabbard.

—James Howell, 1659

Water its living strength first shows, / When obstacles its course oppose.

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1815