Speak and speed; the close mouth catches no flies.
—Benjamin Franklin, c. 1732
Archive
Quotes
I’ve been on more laps than a napkin.
—Mae WestChildhood knows what it wants—to leave childhood behind.
—Jean Cocteau, 1947Keep away from physicians. It is all probing and guessing and pretending with them. They leave it to nature to cure in her own time, but they take the credit. As well as very fat fees.
—Anthony Burgess, 1964My stern chase after time is, to borrow a simile from Tom Paine, like the race of a man with a wooden leg after a horse.
—John Quincy Adams, 1844Don’t talk to me about naval tradition. It’s nothing but rum, sodomy, and the lash.
—Winston Churchill, 1939If the people be the governors, who shall be governed?
—John Cotton, c. 1636When a coward sees a man he can beat, he becomes hungry for a fight.
—Chinua Achebe, 1960Nature has planted in our minds an insatiable desire to seek the truth.
—Marcus Tullius Cicero, 45 BCNo man ever distinguished himself who could not bear to be laughed at.
—Maria Edgeworth, 1809Hatred of domestic work is a natural and admirable result of civilization.
—Rebecca West, 1912No punishment has ever possessed enough power of deterrence to prevent the commission of crimes.
—Hannah Arendt, 1963How absurd men are! They never use the liberties they have, they demand those they do not have. They have freedom of thought, they demand freedom of speech.
—Søren Kierkegaard, 1843