To know intense joy without a strong bodily frame, one must have an enthusiastic soul.
—George Eliot, 1872
Archive
Quotes
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
—Wendell Berry, 1983I’ve dreamed enough to have a drink.
—François Rabelais, 1546All traveling becomes dull in exact proportion to its rapidity.
—John Ruskin, 1856I don’t believe in total freedom for the artist. Left on his own, free to do anything he likes, the artist ends up doing nothing at all. If there’s one thing that’s dangerous for an artist, it’s precisely this question of total freedom, waiting for inspiration and all the rest of it.
—Federico Fellini, c. 1950Every revolution by force only puts more violent means of enslavement into the hands of the persons in power.
—Leo Tolstoy, 1893The United States has virtually set up an empire on impounded and redistributed water.
—Charles P. Berkey, 1946Water astonishing and difficult altogether makes a meadow and a stroke.
—Gertrude Stein, 1914The past grows gradually around one, like a placenta for dying.
—John Berger, 1984The gratitude is greater than the gift.
—Pierre Corneille, 1641If you wish to avoid foreign collision, you had better abandon the ocean.
—Henry Clay, 1812Every thought is, strictly speaking, an afterthought.
—Hannah Arendt, 1978Why has the government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.
—Alexander Hamilton, 1787