The future, like everything else, is no longer quite what it used to be.
—Paul Valéry, 1931
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Quotes
The sea is mother-death, and she is a mighty female, the one who wins, the one who sucks us all up.
—Anne Sexton, 1971Punishment is a sort of medicine.
—Aristotle, c. 340 BCThere is not so contemptible a plant or animal that does not confound the most enlarged understanding.
—John Locke, 1689There is nothing sillier than a silly laugh.
—Catullus, c. 60 BCPolitical power grows out of the barrel of a gun.
—Mao Zedong, 1938Those who go overseas find a change of climate, not a change of soul.
—Horace, c. 20 BCThey say that gifts persuade even the gods.
—Euripides, 431 BCThought depends absolutely on the stomach, but in spite of that, those who have the best stomachs are not the best thinkers.
—Voltaire, 1770Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term art, I should call it “the reproduction of what the senses perceive in nature through the veil of the soul.” The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of “artist.”
—Edgar Allan Poe, 1849The tune I remember, could I but keep the words.
—Virgil, 38 BCFamily! Thou art the home of all social evil, a charitable institution for comfortable women, an anchorage for house-fathers, and a hell for children.
—August Strindberg, 1886One has to spend so many years in learning how to be happy.
—George Eliot, 1844