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Quotes

One 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, 1958

No one’s serious at seventeen.

—Arthur Rimbaud, 1870

People will not look forward to posterity who never look backward to their ancestors.

—Edmund Burke, 1790

The right to the pursuit of happiness is nothing else than the right to disillusionment phrased in another way.

—Aldous Huxley, 1956

Time’s violence rends the soul; by the rent eternity enters.

—Simone Weil, 1947

To ensure the adoration of a theorem for any length of time, faith is not enough; a police force is needed as well.

—Albert Camus, 1951

It is impossible to please all the world and one’s father.

—Jean de La Fontaine, 1668

Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.

—Paul Valéry, 1943

The beginning of health lies in knowing the disease.

—Miguel de Cervantes, 1615

Friendship itself will not stand the strain of very much good advice for very long.

—Robert Wilson Lynd, 1924

Lord! I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing.

—Jonathan Swift, 1738

The future, like everything else, is no longer quite what it used to be.

—Paul Valéry, 1931

Of all the creatures that breathe and creep on the surface of the earth, none is more to be pitied than man.

—Homer, c. 750 BC