Youth is the time to go flashing from one end of the world to the other both in mind and body, to try the manners of different nations, to hear the chimes at midnight.
—Robert Louis Stevenson, 1881
Archive
Quotes
When poets don’t know what to say and have completely given up on the play, just like a finger, they lift the machine and the spectators are satisfied.
—Antiphanes, c. 350 BCLaughter always arises from a gaiety of disposition, absolutely incompatible with contempt and indignation.
—Voltaire, 1736Life is no way to treat an animal.
—Kurt Vonnegut, 2005Jokes are grievances.
—Marshall McLuhan, 1969The real problem of humanity is the following: we have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology.
—Edward O. Wilson, 2009Go to the ant, you lazybones; consider its ways, and be wise.
—Book of Proverbs, c. 350 BCWhen a man dies, and his kin are glad of it, they say, “He is better off.”
—Edgar Watson Howe, 1911Anything one is remembering is a repetition, but existing as a human being that is being, listening, and hearing is never repetition.
—Gertrude Stein, 1935A fool and water will go the way they are diverted.
—Ethiopian proverbThe atavistic urge toward danger persists and its satisfaction is called adventure.
—John Steinbeck, 1941Anyone who doesn’t know foreign languages knows nothing of his own.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1821I’d like to be a machine, wouldn’t you?
—Andy Warhol, 1963