“Work” does not exist in a nonliterate world. The primitive hunter or fisherman did no work, any more than does the poet, painter, or thinker of today. Where the whole man is involved there is no work.
—Marshall McLuhan, 1964
Archive
Quotes
All pain is one malady with many names.
—Antiphanes, c. 400 BCDo not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring.
—Book of Proverbs, c. 150 BCMachines do not run in order to enable men to live, but we resign ourselves to feeding men in order that they may serve the machines.
—Simone Weil, 1934A woman’s greatest glory is to be little talked about by men, whether for good or ill.
—Pericles, c. 450 BCWar is the child of pride, and pride the daughter of riches.
—Jonathan Swift, 1697Let the young know they will never find a more interesting, more instructive book than the patient himself.
—Giorgio Baglivi, c. 1696I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be a Catholic) how to act and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote.
—John F. Kennedy, 1960Drunkenness is the very sepulcher / Of man’s wit and his discretion.
—Geoffrey Chaucer, c. 1390In peace, children inter their parents; war violates the order of nature and causes parents to inter their children.
—Herodotus, 440 BCRevolutions are always verbose.
—Leon Trotsky, 1933It was lonesome, the leaving.
—Wetatonmi, c. 1877To need to dominate others is to need others. The commander is dependent.
—Fernando Pessoa, c. 1935