One race there is of men, one of gods, but from one mother we both draw our breath.
—Pindar, c. 450 BC
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Quotes
If they prescribe a lot of remedies for some sickness or other, it means that the sickness is incurable.
—Anton Chekhov, 1904The charm, one might say the genius, of memory is that it is choosy, chancy, and temperamental: it rejects the edifying cathedral and indelibly photographs the small boy outside, chawing a hunk of melon in the dust.
—Elizabeth Bowen, 1955To live exiled from a place you have known intimately is to experience sensory deprivation. A wide-awake coma.
—Gretel Ehrlich, 1994Communities do not cease to be colonies because they are independent.
—Benjamin Disraeli, 1863What timid man does not avoid contact with the sick, fearing lest he contract a disease so near?
—Ovid, c. 10The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it.
—John Locke, 1695We must select the illusion which appeals to our temperament and embrace it with passion if we want to be happy.
—Cyril Connolly, 1944Nowadays three witty turns of phrase and a lie make a writer.
—G.C. Lichtenberg, c. 1780The friend of all humanity is no friend to me.
—Molière, 1666Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in the nineteenth century that one cannot explain away.
—Oscar Wilde, 1891What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul.
—Joseph Addison, 1711Our entire history is merely the history of the waking life of man; nobody has yet considered the history of his sleeping life.
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, c. 1780