A large city cannot be experientially known; its life is too manifold for any individual to be able to participate in it.
—Aldous Huxley, 1934
Archive
Quotes
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
—Lord Acton, 1887The bathing was so delightful this morning, and Molly so pressing with me to enjoy myself, that I believe I stayed in rather too long, as since the middle of the day I have felt unreasonably tired. I shall be more careful another time, and shall not bathe tomorrow as I had before intended.
—Jane Austen, 1804Again, men in general desire the good, and not merely what their fathers had.
—Aristotle, c. 350 BCIf a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great streetsweeper that did his job well.
—Martin Luther King Jr., 1954What a torture to talk to filled heads that allow nothing from the outside to enter them.
—Joseph Joubert, 1807What is death? A scary mask. Take it off—see, it doesn’t bite.
—Epictetus, c. 110See one promontory (said Socrates of old), one mountain, one sea, one river, and see all.
—Robert Burton, c. 1620Keep away from physicians. It is all probing and guessing and pretending with them. They leave it to nature to cure in her own time, but they take the credit. As well as very fat fees.
—Anthony Burgess, 1964What will not attract a man’s stare at sea?—a gull, a turtle, a flying fish!
—Richard Burton, 1883Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing—the rest is mere sheep herding.
—Ezra Pound, 1934It is impossible to live pleasurably without living wisely, well, and justly, and impossible to live wisely, well, and justly without living pleasurably.
—Epicurus, c. 300 BCAn oppressed people are authorized, whenever they can, to rise and break their fetters.
—Henry Clay, 1842