Seamen are the nearest to death and the furthest from God.
—Thomas Fuller, 1732Quotes
How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do.
—William James, 1902What delight can there be, and not rather displeasure, in hearing the barking and howling of dogs? Or what greater pleasure is there to be felt when a dog followeth a hare than when a dog followeth a dog?
—Thomas More, 1516No lyric poems live long or please many people which are written by drinkers of water.
—Horace, 20 BCI have a terrible memory; I never forget a thing.
—Edith Konecky, 1976The vice presidency isn’t worth a pitcher of warm piss.
—John Nance Garner, c. 1967My interest is in the future, because I am going to spend the rest of my life there.
—Charles F. Kettering, 1946Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands, and goes to work.
—Carl Sandburg, 1959Democracy is the menopause of Western society, the grand climacteric of the body social. Fascism is its middle-aged lust.
—Jean Baudrillard, 1987Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
—Marcus Tullius Cicero, 63 BCTelevision has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.
—Shimon Peres, 1995Our allotted time is the passing of a shadow.
—Book of Wisdom, c. 100 BCEvery man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of himself.
—H.L. Mencken, 1919