Quotes

The sick man is the parasite of society.

—Friedrich Nietzsche, 1889

Can we not live without pleasure, who cannot but with pleasure die?

—Tertullian, c. 215

The Church says that the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in the shadow than in the Church.

—Ferdinand Magellan, c. 1510

The seeds of civilization are in every culture, but it is city life that brings them to fruition.

—Susanne K. Langer, 1962

Once something becomes discernible, or understandable, we no longer need to repeat it. We can destroy it.

—Robert Wilson, 1991

For what do we live but to make sport for our neighbors and laugh at them in our turn?

—Jane Austen, 1813

Now there is fame! Of all—hunger, misery, the incomprehension by the public—fame is by far the worst. It is the castigation by God of the artist. It is sad. It is true.

—Pablo Picasso, c. 1961

If you are truly serious about preparing your child for the future, don’t teach him to subtract—teach him to deduct.

—Fran Lebowitz, 1981

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.

—Mark Twain, 1894

Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live.

—Socrates, c. 430 BC

I think it makes small difference to the dead if they are buried in the tokens of luxury. All this is an empty glorification left for those who live.

—Euripides, 415 BC

Nature contains no one constant form.

—Paul-Henri Dietrich d’Holbach, 1770

An American will build a house in which to pass his old age and sell it before the roof is on.

—Alexis de Tocqueville, 1840

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