I reckon being ill as one of the great pleasures of life, provided one is not too ill and is not obliged to work till one is better.
—Samuel Butler, c. 1902
Archive
Quotes
We have forgotten how to be good guests, how to walk lightly on the earth as its other creatures do.
—Barbara Ward, 1972Some memories are like lucky charms, talismans, one shouldn’t tell about them or they’ll lose their power.
—Iris Murdoch, 1985One must love people a good deal whom one takes pains to convince or instruct.
—Mary de la Riviere Manley, 1720I have often been convinced that a democracy is incapable of empire.
—Thucydides, c. 404 BCConjecturing a Climate
Of unsuspended Suns –
Adds poignancy to Winter
What a man does abroad by night requires and implies more deliberate energy than what he is encouraged to do in the sunshine.
—Henry David Thoreau, 1852Much money makes a country poor, for it sets a dearer price on every thing.
—George Herbert, 1640One of the saddest things is that the only thing that a man can do for eight hours a day, day after day, is work. You can’t eat eight hours a day, nor drink for eight hours a day, nor make love for eight hours.
—William Faulkner, 1958The future is no more uncertain than the present.
—Walt Whitman, 1856How like to us is that filthy beast the ape.
—Cicero, 45 BCIf my books had been any worse I should not have been invited to Hollywood, and if they had been any better I should not have come.
—Raymond Chandler, 1945It is a luxury to be understood.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1831