Exile lacks the grandeur, the majesty, of expatriation.
—Bharati Mukherjee, 1999
Archive
Quotes
Every city has a sex and an age which have nothing to do with demography. Rome is feminine. So is Odessa. London is a teenager, an urchin, and in this hasn’t changed since the time of Dickens. Paris, I believe, is a man in his twenties in love with an older woman.
—John Berger, 1987All men naturally hate each other. We have used concupiscence as best we can to make it serve the common good, but this is mere sham and a false image of charity, for essentially it is just hate.
—Blaise Pascal, c. 1655Peace is a natural effect of trade.
—Montesquieu, 1748Mammon, n. The god of the world’s leading religion. His chief temple is in the holy city of New York.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1911There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.
—Thomas Jefferson, 1790It’s the end of the world every day, for someone.
—Margaret Atwood, 2000A 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 BCDisease generally begins that equality which death completes.
—Samuel Johnson, 1750Every man has a lurking wish to appear considerable in his native place.
—Samuel Johnson, 1771Strength of mind is exercise, not rest.
—Alexander Pope, 1733Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.
—G.K. Chesterton, 1928I detest war. It spoils armies.
—Grand Duke Constantine of Russia, c. 1820