We wish away whole years, and travel through time as through a country filled with many wild and empty wastes, which we would fain hurry over, that we may arrive at those several little settlements or imaginary points of rest which are dispersed up and down in it.
—Joseph Addison, 1711
Archive
Quotes
None who have always been free can understand the terrible fascinating power of the hope of freedom to those who are not free.
—Pearl S. Buck, 1943Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.
—Jane Austen, 1818O citizens, first acquire wealth; you can practice virtue afterward.
—Horace, c. 8 BCIn the matter of furnishing, I find a certain absence of ugliness far worse than ugliness.
—Colette, 1944In peace, children inter their parents; war violates the order of nature and causes parents to inter their children.
—Herodotus, 440 BCHe who dies of epidemic disease is a martyr.
—Muhammad, c. 630The civilized man has built a coach but has lost the use of his feet.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1841To be a successful father… there’s one absolute rule: when you have a kid, don’t look at it for the first two years.
—Ernest Hemingway, 1954I shall be an autocrat: that’s my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that’s his.
—Catherine the Great, c. 1796A large city cannot be experientially known; its life is too manifold for any individual to be able to participate in it.
—Aldous Huxley, 1934Don’t ever wear artistic jewelry; it wrecks a woman’s reputation.
—Colette, 1944Happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous.
—Pericles, c. 431 BC