Archive

Quotes

I would delight in music, but the music is discordant.

—Xie Lingyun, c. 425

The day unravels what the night has woven.

—Walter Benjamin, 1929

When a traveler returneth home, let him not leave the countries where he hath traveled altogether behind him.

—Francis Bacon, 1625

The boy is, of all wild beasts, the most difficult to manage. 

—Plato, c. 348 BC

It is impossible to live pleasurably without living wisely, well, and justly, and impossible to live wisely, well, and justly without living pleasurably.

—Epicurus, c. 300 BC

A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

—Martin Luther King Jr., c. 1967

Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o’clock is a scoundrel.

—Samuel Johnson, c. 1770

A dog starved at his master’s gate / Predicts the ruin of the state.

—William Blake, 1807

Once suspicion is aroused, everything feeds it.

—Amelia Edith Barr, 1885

A joke is at most a temporary rebellion against virtue, and its aim is not to degrade the human being but to remind him that he is already degraded.

—George Orwell, 1945

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

I never practice, I always play.

—Wanda Landowska, 1953

The only justification of rebellion is success.

—Thomas B. Reed, 1878