Archive

Quotes

We are to go to law never to revenge, but only to repair.

—Samuel Pepys, 1661

The passion for setting people right is in itself an afflictive disease.

—Marianne Moore, 1935

Understanding is a very dull occupation.

—Gertrude Stein, 1937

Like a broken gong be still, be silent. Know the stillness of freedom where there is no more striving.

—Siddhartha Gautama, c. 500 BC

In my dreams I sleep with everybody.

—Anaïs Nin, 1933

An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry.

—George Eliot, 1866

The physician should look upon the patient as a besieged city and try to rescue him with every means that art and science place at his command.

—Alexander of Tralles, c. 600

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

—John Wilkes Booth, 1865

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

An unjust law is no law at all.

—Saint Augustine, 395

If anything affects your eye, you hasten to have it removed; if anything affects your mind, you postpone the cure for a year.

—Horace, 20 BC

I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigrees of nations.

—Samuel Johnson, 1773

I cannot live without books, but fewer will suffice where amusement, and not use, is the only future object.

—Thomas Jefferson, 1815