What harm is there in getting knowledge and learning, were it from a sot, a pot, a fool, a winter mitten, or an old slipper?
—François Rabelais, 1533
Archive
Quotes
It is better to live unknown to the law.
—Irish proverbI have often been convinced that a democracy is incapable of empire.
—Thucydides, c. 404 BCThe U.S. presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones.
—Anthony Burgess, 1972A true German can’t stand the French, / Yet willingly he drinks their wines.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1832I know what I have given you. I do not know what you have received.
—Antonio Porchia, 1943After midnight the moon set and I was alone with the stars. I have often said that the lure of flying is the lure of beauty, and I need no other flight to convince me that the reason flyers fly, whether they know it or not, is the aesthetic appeal of flying.
—Amelia Earhart, 1935The physician should look upon the patient as a besieged city and try to rescue him with every means that art and science place at his command.
—Alexander of Tralles, c. 600Friendships begin with liking or gratitude—roots that can be pulled up.
—George Eliot, 1876At night comes counsel to the wise.
—Menander, c. 300 BCIt belongs to a nobleman to weep in an hour of disaster.
—Euripides, 412 BCEveryone who is sick is someone else’s patient zero.
—Leslie Jamison, 2020When a traveler returneth home, let him not leave the countries where he hath traveled altogether behind him.
—Francis Bacon, 1625