The young always have the same problem—how to rebel and conform at the same time. They have now solved this by defying their elders and copying one another.
—Quentin Crisp, 1968
Archive
Quotes
Speak and speed; the close mouth catches no flies.
—Benjamin Franklin, c. 1732The land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of violence.
—The BibleWhen we see a natural style we are quite amazed and delighted, because we expected to see an author and find a man.
—Blaise Pascal, c. 1657In Washington, the first thing people tell you is what their job is. In Los Angeles you learn their star sign. In Houston you’re told how rich they are. And in New York they tell you what their rent is.
—Simon Hoggart, 1990No one wins a quarrel by quarreling.
—German proverbWhen you have only two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other.
—Chinese proverbSuffering has its limit, but fears are endless.
—Pliny the Younger, c. 108The various modes of religion which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true, by the philosophers equally false, and by the magistrate as equally useful.
—Edward Gibbon, 1776The work of art, just like any fragment of human life considered in its deepest meaning, seems to me devoid of value if it does not offer the hardness, the rigidity, the regularity, the luster on every interior and exterior facet, of the crystal.
—André Breton, 1937Every tooth in a man’s head is more valuable than a diamond.
—Miguel de Cervantes, 1605The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.
—Albert Einstein, 1936Gossip isn’t scandal and it’s not merely malicious. It’s chatter about the human race by lovers of the same.
—Phyllis McGinley, 1957