Archive

Quotes

Cows are among the gentlest of breathing creatures; none show more passionate tenderness to their young when deprived of them—and, in short, I am not ashamed to profess a deep love for these quiet creatures.

—Thomas De Quincey, 1821

Revolutions never go backward.

—Thomas Skidmore, 1829

What is popularly called fame is nothing but an empty name and a legacy from paganism.

—Erasmus, 1515

The misfortune of the man of color is having been enslaved. The misfortune and inhumanity of the white man are having killed man somewhere.

—Frantz Fanon, 1952

I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast, for I intend to go in harm’s way.

—John Paul Jones, 1778

There are places one comes home to that one has never been to.

—Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, 1989

The land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of violence.

—The Bible

To hold a throne is luck; to bestow it, virtue.

—Seneca the Younger, c. 45

The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes “sightseeing.”

—Daniel Boorstin, 1961

A whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard.

—Herman Melville, 1851

What mighty contests rise from trivial things.

—Alexander Pope, 1712

Civilization, as we know it, is a movement and not a condition, a voyage and not a harbor.

—Arnold Toynbee, 1948

I find the pain of a little censure, even when it is unfounded, is more acute than the pleasure of much praise.

—Thomas Jefferson, 1789