It is impossible to live pleasurably without living wisely, well, and justly, and impossible to live wisely, well, and justly without living pleasurably.
—Epicurus, c. 300 BC
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Quotes
To safeguard one’s health at the cost of too strict a diet is a tiresome illness indeed.
—La Rochefoucauld, 1678The sea is mother-death, and she is a mighty female, the one who wins, the one who sucks us all up.
—Anne Sexton, 1971I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
—Galileo Galilei, 1615Many, many steeples would have to be stacked one on top of another to reach from the bottom to the surface of the sea. It is down there that the sea folk live.
—Hans Christian Andersen, 1837We must consider that we shall be a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us, so that if we deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword through the world.
—John Winthrop, 1630I tell you, there is such a thing as creative hate!
—Willa Cather, 1915Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.
—Henry Kissinger, 1972The earth is beautiful and bright and kindly, but that is not all. The earth is also terrible and dark and cruel.
—Ursula K. Le Guin, 1970For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?
—Jane Austen, 1813Sanity is madness put to good uses; waking life is a dream controlled.
—George Santayana, 1920How like to us is that filthy beast the ape.
—Cicero, 45 BCOne’s friends are that part of the human race with which one can be human.
—George Santayana, c. 1914