Water its living strength first shows, / When obstacles its course oppose.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1815
Archive
Quotes
Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.
—G.K. Chesterton, 1928Information can tell us everything. It has all the answers. But they are answers to questions we have not asked, and which doubtless don’t even arise.
—Jean Baudrillard, c. 1987Infectious disease is one of the few genuine adventures left in the world.
—Hans Zinsser, 1935The friend of all humanity is no friend to me.
—Molière, 1666The populace may hiss me, but when I go home and think of my money, I applaud myself.
—Horace, c. 25 BCIf a king loves music, there is little wrong in the land.
—Mencius, c. 330 BCThe sole business of a seaman onshore who has to go to sea again is to take as much pleasure as he can.
—Leigh Hunt, 1820Grown up, and that is a terribly hard thing to do. It is much easier to skip it and go from one childhood to another.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald, c. 1940If anything affects your eye, you hasten to have it removed; if anything affects your mind, you postpone the cure for a year.
—Horace, 20 BCThe past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.
—L.P. Hartley, 1953It’s frightening to think that you mark your children merely by being yourself… it seems unfair. You can’t assume the responsibility for everything you do—or don’t do.
—Simone de Beauvoir, 1966Better no law than no law enforced.
—Danish proverb