To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.
—Oscar Wilde, 1891
Archive
Quotes
The law makes ten criminals where it restrains one.
—Voltairine de Cleyre, 1890Formula for success: rise early, work hard, strike oil.
—J. Paul GettyLet me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world: it gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel. The picture of free, untrammeled womanhood.
—Susan B. Anthony, 1896Go to the pine if you want to learn about the pine, or to the bamboo if you want to learn about the bamboo.
—Matsuo Basho, c. 1685The thirsty earth soaks up the rain, / And drinks, and gapes for drink again.
—Abraham Cowley, 1656Those who travel heedlessly from place to place, observing only their distance from each other and attending only to their accommodation at the inn at night, set out fools, and will certainly return so.
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 1747We must select the illusion which appeals to our temperament and embrace it with passion if we want to be happy.
—Cyril Connolly, 1944Inventions that are not made, like babies that are not born, are rarely missed.
—John Kenneth Galbraith, 1958I think we are inexterminable, like flies and bedbugs.
—Robert Frost, 1959Someone who knows too much finds it hard not to lie.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1947Africa has her mysteries, and even a wise man cannot understand them. But a wise man respects them.
—Miriam Makeba, 1988Friendship is not possible between two women, one of whom is very well dressed.
—Laurie Colwin, 1978