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Quotes

One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards.

—Oscar Wilde, 1895

A fair complexion is unbecoming to a sailor: he ought to be swarthy from the waters of the sea and the rays of the sun.

—Ovid, c. 1 BC

I work for a government I despise for ends I think criminal.

—John Maynard Keynes, 1917

If both what is before and what is after are in this same “now,” things which happened ten thousand years ago would be simultaneous with what has happened today, and nothing would be before or after anything else.

—Aristotle, c. 330 BC

I have never felt salvation in nature. I love cities above all.

—Michelangelo Antonioni, 1967

Being thus arrived in good harbor, and brought safe to land, they fell upon their knees and blessed the God of heaven who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean and delivered them from all the perils and miseries thereof, again to set their feet on the firm and stale earth, their proper element.

—William Bradford, 1630

No time to marry, no time to settle down, I’m a young woman, and ain’t done runnin’ round.

—Bessie Smith, 1926

It is a certain sign of a wise government and proceeding, when it can hold men’s hearts by hopes, when it cannot by satisfaction.

—Francis Bacon, 1625

Understanding is a very dull occupation.

—Gertrude Stein, 1937

It is impossible to please all the world and one’s father.

—Jean de La Fontaine, 1668

I used to think that everyone was just being funny. But now I don’t know. I mean, how can you tell?

—Andy Warhol, 1970

A garden must be looked into, and dressed as the body.

—George Herbert, 1640

I have seen the science I worshipped, and the aircraft I loved, destroying the civilization I expected them to serve.

—Charles Lindbergh, 1948