As matron and mistress will differ in temper and tone, so will the friend be distinct from the faithless parasite.
—Horace, c. 20 BC
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Quotes
All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.
—Oscar Wilde, 1895A true German can’t stand the French, / Yet willingly he drinks their wines.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1832The work of art, just like any fragment of human life considered in its deepest meaning, seems to me devoid of value if it does not offer the hardness, the rigidity, the regularity, the luster on every interior and exterior facet, of the crystal.
—André Breton, 1937One need merely visit the marketplace and the graveyard to determine whether a city is in both physical and metaphysical order.
—Ernst Jünger, 1977One who is frivolous all day will never establish a household.
—Ptahhotep, c. 2400 BCLo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.
—Ecclesiastes, c. 250 BCIf you wish to avoid foreign collision, you had better abandon the ocean.
—Henry Clay, 1812My mother protected me from the world and my father threatened me with it.
—Quentin Crisp, 1968Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs only to the people who prepare for it today.
—Malcolm X, 1964Law makes long spokes of the short stakes of men.
—William Empson, 1928Everyone complains about his memory, and no one complains about his judgment.
—La Rochefoucauld, 1666Make human nature your study wherever you reside—whatever the religion or the complexion, study their hearts.
—Ignatius Sancho, 1778