I am dying with the help of too many physicians.
—Alexander the Great, c. 323 BCQuotes
In the country gossip is a pastime; in the city it is a warfare.
—W.M.L. Jay, 1870I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas and land on barbarous coasts.
—Herman Melville, 1853I think we are inexterminable, like flies and bedbugs.
—Robert Frost, 1959Usually speaking, the worst-bred person in company is a young traveler just returned from abroad.
—Jonathan Swift, c. 1730One’s friends are divided into two classes, those one knows because one must and those one knows because one mustn’t.
—Sybil Taylor, 1922I have yet, I believe, some years in store, for I have a good state of health and a happy mind, and I take care of both by nourishing the first with temperance and the latter with abundance. This, I believe, you will allow to be the true philosophy of life.
—Thomas Paine, 1803Talk to me about the truth of religion and I’ll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I’ll listen submissively. But don’t come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don’t understand.
—C.S. Lewis, 1961To call a fashion wearable is the kiss of death. No new fashion worth its salt is ever wearable.
—Eugenia Sheppard, 1960Nothing worth knowing can be understood with the mind.
—Woody Allen, 1979The seeds of civilization are in every culture, but it is city life that brings them to fruition.
—Susanne K. Langer, 1962It is not flesh and blood but the heart which makes us fathers and sons.
—Friedrich Schiller, 1781Familiarity breeds contempt—and children.
—Mark Twain, c. 1900