Archive

Quotes

One of the secrets of a happy life is continuous small treats.

—Iris Murdoch, 1978

From hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee.

—Herman Melville, 1851

Pushing someone toward liberty does not set her free; taking the chains off a prisoner does not give him freedom.

—Ken Bugul, 1982

No poems can please long, nor live, that are written by water drinkers.

—Horace, 35 BC

You must not grow used to making money out of everything. One sees more people ruined than one has seen preserved by shameful gains.

—Sophocles, c. 442 BC

The world began without man, and it will end without him.

—Claude Lévi-Strauss, 1955

The beginning of health lies in knowing the disease.

—Miguel de Cervantes, 1615

Democracy forever teases us with the contrast between its ideals and its realities, between its heroic possibilities and its sorry achievements.

—Agnes Repplier, 1916

If I see something sagging, dragging, or bagging, I’m going to go have the stuff tucked or plucked.

—Dolly Parton, 2003

If the bird does like its cage, and does like its sugar, and will not leave it, why keep the door so very carefully shut?

—Olive Schreiner, 1883

The law’s made to take care o’ raskills.

—George Eliot, 1860

Rewards and punishment are the lowest form of education.

—Zhuangzi, c. 286 BC

When law can do no right,
Let it be lawful that law bar no wrong.

—William Shakespeare, c. 1594