Nothing is more narrow-minded than chauvinism or racial hatred. To me all men are equal; there are flatheads everywhere and I despise them all equally.
—Karl Kraus, 1909
Archive
Quotes
If I had no duties, and no reference to futurity, I would spend my life in driving briskly in a post-chaise with a pretty woman.
—Samuel Johnson, 1777A maid that laughs is half taken.
—John Ray, 1670When the abbot throws the dice, the whole convent will play.
—Martin Luther, c. 1540Drunkenness is the very sepulcher / Of man’s wit and his discretion.
—Geoffrey Chaucer, c. 1390Some memories are like lucky charms, talismans, one shouldn’t tell about them or they’ll lose their power.
—Iris Murdoch, 1985Methinks the human method of expression by sound of tongue is very elementary and ought to be substituted for some ingenious invention which should be able to give vent to at least six coherent sentences at once.
—Virginia Woolf, 1899We do not suffer by accident.
—Jane Austen, 1813People commonly travel the world over to see rivers and mountains, new stars, garish birds, freak fish, grotesque breeds of human; they fall into an animal stupor that gapes at existence, and they think they have seen something.
—Søren Kierkegaard, 1843The young always have the same problem—how to rebel and conform at the same time. They have now solved this by defying their elders and copying one another.
—Quentin Crisp, 1968A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth.
—George Bernard Shaw, 1903When a coward sees a man he can beat, he becomes hungry for a fight.
—Chinua Achebe, 1960Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others.
—Jane Austen, 1811