Water, thou hast no taste, no color, no odor; canst not be defined, art relished while ever mysterious.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1939
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Quotes
The fascination of shooting as a sport depends almost wholly on whether you are at the right or wrong end of a gun.
—P.G. Wodehouse, 1929If we pretend to respect the artist at all, we must allow him his freedom of choice, in the face, in particular cases, of innumerable presumptions that the choice will not fructify. Art derives a considerable part of its beneficial exercise from flying in the face of presumptions.
—Henry James, 1884In tampering with the earth, we tamper with a mystery.
—Jonathan Schell, 2000Science is a cemetery of dead ideas.
—Miguel de Unamuno, 1913The things of the night cannot be explained in the day, because they do not then exist.
—Ernest Hemingway, 1929He who dies of epidemic disease is a martyr.
—Muhammad, c. 630I think heaven will not be as good as earth, unless it bring with it that sweet power to remember, which is the staple of heaven here.
—Emily Dickinson, 1879Governments are not overthrown by the poor, who have no power, but by the rich—when they are insulted by their inferiors and cannot obtain justice.
—Dionysius of Halicarnassus, c. 20 BCFreedom is not something that anybody can be given; freedom is something people take, and people are as free as they want to be.
—James Baldwin, 1961One’s friends are divided into two classes, those one knows because one must and those one knows because one mustn’t.
—Sybil Taylor, 1922The best augury of a man’s success in his profession is that he thinks it the finest in the world.
—George Eliot, 1876The sole business of a seaman onshore who has to go to sea again is to take as much pleasure as he can.
—Leigh Hunt, 1820