Archive

Quotes

The children of the revolution are always ungrateful, and the revolution must be grateful that it is so.

—Ursula K. Le Guin, 1983

I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast, for I intend to go in harm’s way.

—John Paul Jones, 1778

Good fortune turns aside destruction by a great god.

—Instructions of Ankhsheshonqy, c. 100 BC

Appearances often are deceiving.

—Aesop, c. 550 BC

If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins to them.

—Francis Bacon, 1625

No man will take counsel, but every man will take money: therefore money is better than counsel.

—Jonathan Swift, 1702

Quarrels would not last long if the fault was only on one side.

—La Rochefoucauld, 1665

O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes.

—William Shakespeare, c. 1599

A multitude of small delights constitute happiness.

—Charles Baudelaire, 1897

Fire is a natural symbol of life and passion, though it is the one element in which nothing can actually live.

—Susanne K. Langer, 1942

A crust of bread and a corner to sleep in / A minute to smile and an hour to weep in.

—Paul Laurence Dunbar, 1895

Little folks become their little fate.

—Horace, c. 20 BC

I do not amuse myself by thinking of dead people.

—Napoleon Bonaparte, 1807