The belly is the teacher of the arts and bestower of invention.
—Persius, c. 55
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Quotes
Motherhood is the strangest thing, it can be like being one’s own Trojan horse.
—Rebecca West, 1959I even gave up, for a while, stopping by the window of the room to look out at the lights and deep, illuminated streets. That’s a form of dying, that losing contact with the city like that.
—Philip K. Dick, 1972The 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. 1510As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.
—Pope John Paul II, 1986Many a man who thinks to found a home discovers that he has merely opened a tavern for his friends.
—Norman Douglas, 1917The past grows gradually around one, like a placenta for dying.
—John Berger, 1984The decline of the aperitif may well be one of the most depressing phenomena of our time.
—Luis Buñuel, 1983Children and fools cannot lie.
—John Heywood, 1546The chief merit of language is clearness, and we know that nothing detracts so much from this as do unfamiliar terms.
—Galen, c. 175One 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, 1958Petty laws breed great crimes.
—Ouida, 1880If a man will observe as he walks the streets, I believe he will find the merriest countenances in mourning coaches.
—Jonathan Swift, 1706