On the loftiest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own rump.
—Michel de Montaigne, 1580
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Quotes
Nature never breaks her own laws.
—Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1500After midnight the moon set and I was alone with the stars. I have often said that the lure of flying is the lure of beauty, and I need no other flight to convince me that the reason flyers fly, whether they know it or not, is the aesthetic appeal of flying.
—Amelia Earhart, 1935Many a man who thinks to found a home discovers that he has merely opened a tavern for his friends.
—Norman Douglas, 1917Much money makes a country poor, for it sets a dearer price on every thing.
—George Herbert, 1640No one’s serious at seventeen.
—Arthur Rimbaud, 1870To hold a throne is luck; to bestow it, virtue.
—Seneca the Younger, c. 45I live by good soup, and not on fine language.
—Molière, 1672Drugs, cataplasms, and whiskey are stupid substitutes for the dignity and potency of divine mind and its efficacy to heal.
—Mary Baker Eddy, 1908All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.
—Oscar Wilde, 1895I cannot bear a parent’s tears.
—Virgil, c. 25 BCWhoever gulps down wine as a horse gulps down water is called a Scythian.
—Athenaeus, c. 230It is a certain sign of a wise government and proceeding, when it can hold men’s hearts by hopes, when it cannot by satisfaction.
—Francis Bacon, 1625