Man’s great mission is not to conquer nature by main force but to cooperate with her intelligently but lovingly for his own purposes.
—Lewis Mumford, 1962
Archive
Quotes
I’ve been on more laps than a napkin.
—Mae WestThey say, “We only have the life of this world. We die and we live, and nothing destroys us but time.” Yet, not true knowledge have they of this—only belief.
—The Qur’an, c. 620My father! The sun is my father, and the earth is my mother, and on her bosom I will recline.
—Tecumseh, 1810I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas and land on barbarous coasts.
—Herman Melville, 1853Let the French but have England, and they won’t want to conquer it.
—Horace Walpole, 1745If my books had been any worse I should not have been invited to Hollywood, and if they had been any better I should not have come.
—Raymond Chandler, 1945Friendship was given by nature to be an assistant to virtue, not a companion to vice.
—Marcus Tullius Cicero, c. 45 BCLanguage ought to be the joint creation of poets and manual workers.
—George Orwell, 1944Do not ask me to be kind; just ask me to act as though I were.
—Jules Renard, 1898Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its brevity.
—Jean de La Bruyère, 1688The best way to fill time is to waste it.
—Marguerite Duras, 1987Every man must descend into the flesh to meet mankind.
—G.K. Chesterton, 1910