Traveling is like gambling: it is ever connected with winning and losing, and generally where least expected we receive more or less than we hoped for.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1797
Archive
Quotes
There is something stirring in the way civilization gapes like a savage at the achievements of nature.
—Karl Kraus, 1909Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a god.
—Jean Rostand, 1939Any serious attempt to do anything worthwhile is ritualistic.
—Derek Walcott, 1986An ugly sight, a man who’s afraid.
—Jean Anouilh, 1944Liberty and democracy are eternal enemies.
—H.L. Mencken, 1925By the blessing of the upright the city is exalted, but it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked.
—Book of Proverbs, c. 350 BCAvoid the talk of men. For talk is mischievous, light, and easily raised, but hard to bear and difficult to be rid of. Talk never wholly dies away when many people voice her: even talk is in some ways divine.
—Hesiod, c. 700 BCIt hurts to watch the fluency of a body acclimated to its shackling.
—Leslie Jamison, 2014All art is a revolt against man’s fate.
—André Malraux, 1951Happiness is no laughing matter.
—Richard Whately, 1843I can’t see (or feel) the conflict between love and religion. To me they’re the same thing.
—Elizabeth Bowen, c. 1970Under the wide and starry sky, / Dig the grave and let me lie.
—Robert Louis Stevenson, 1887