He who is afraid of his own memories is cowardly, really cowardly.
—Elias Canetti, 1954
Archive
Quotes
Two things only the people anxiously desire, bread and the circus games.
—Juvenal, c. 121It is very foolish to attack one’s enemy openly if one can injure him in secret.
—Giambattista Giraldi, 1543The belly is the reason why man does not mistake himself for a god.
—Friedrich Nietzsche, 1886Democracy produces both heroes and villains, but it differs from a fascist state in that it does not produce a hero who is a villain.
—Margaret Halsey, 1946Nothing is so easy as to deceive one’s self; for what we wish, that we readily believe.
—Demosthenes, 349 BCThere is no man so fortunate that there shall not be by him when he is dying some who are pleased with what is going to happen.
—Marcus Aurelius, c. 175Why is not a rat as good as a rabbit? Why should men eat shrimps and neglect cockroaches?
—Henry Ward Beecher, 1862The past grows gradually around one, like a placenta for dying.
—John Berger, 1984Revenge may be wicked, but it’s natural.
—William Makepeace Thackeray, 1847The world is dying of machinery; that is the great disease, that is the plague that will sweep away and destroy civilization; man will have to rise against it sooner or later.
—George Moore, 1888Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no; drunkenness expands, unites, and says yes.
—William James, 1902To eat is to appropriate by destruction.
—Jean-Paul Sartre, 1943