Man punishes the action, but God the intention.
—Thomas Fuller, 1732
Archive
Quotes
You are dust, and to dust you shall return.
—Book of Genesis, c. 800 BCThe traveler with nothing on him sings in the robber’s face.
—Juvenal, c. 125Anyone who has a child should train him to be either a physicist or a ballet dancer. Then he’ll escape.
—W.H. Auden, 1947To achieve harmony in bad taste is the height of elegance.
—Jean Genet, 1949Water is the first principle of everything.
—Thales of Miletus, c. 600 BCSeafarers go to sleep in the evening not knowing whether they will find themselves at the bottom of the sea the next morning.
—Jean de Joinville, c. 1305Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.
—Samuel Johnson, 1750Money, not morality, is the principle of commercial nations.
—Thomas JeffersonI never know quite when I’m not writing. Sometimes my wife comes up to me at a party and says, Dammit, Thurber, stop writing. She usually catches me in the middle of a paragraph. Or my daughter will look up from the dinner table and ask, Is he sick? No, my wife says, he’s writing something.
—James Thurber, 1955What the brain does by itself is infinitely more fascinating and complex than any response it can make to chemical stimulation.
—Ursula K. Le Guin, 1971Hoping for new friendship from old enemies is / Like expecting to find a rose in a furnace.
—Muhammad Baqir Najm-i Sani, 1612The brightest light burns the quickest.
—Olive Beatrice Muir, 1900