Again, men in general desire the good, and not merely what their fathers had.
—Aristotle, c. 350 BC
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Quotes
Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.
—G.K. Chesterton, 1928In the country gossip is a pastime; in the city it is a warfare.
—W.M.L. Jay, 1870The first mistake of art is to assume that it’s serious.
—Lester Bangs, 1971There is no crime without precedent.
—Seneca the Younger, c. 60He who travels by sea is nothing but a worm on a piece of wood, a trifle in the midst of a powerful creation. The waters play about with him at will, and no one but God can help him.
—Muhammad as-Saffar, 1846Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
—Theodore Roosevelt, 1903History is a people’s memory, and without a memory man is demoted to the level of the lower animals.
—Malcolm X, 1964Our crime against criminals is that we treat them as villains.
—Friedrich Nietzsche, 1898Some writers take to drink, others take to audiences.
—Gore Vidal, 1981Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps, for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they ought to be.
—William Hazlitt, 1819Everything remembered is dear, endearing, touching, precious. At least the past is safe—though we didn’t know it at the time.
—Susan Sontag, 1973The Romans would never have found time to conquer the world if they had been obliged first to learn Latin.
—Heinrich Heine, 1827