To achieve harmony in bad taste is the height of elegance.
—Jean Genet, 1949
Archive
Quotes
People are trapped in history, and history is trapped in them.
—James Baldwin, 1953When the missionaries first came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said, “Let us pray.” We closed our eyes. When we opened them, we had the Bible and they had the land.
—Desmond Tutu, 1984It is impossible to tell which of the two dispositions we find in men is more harmful in a republic, that which seeks to maintain an established position or that which has none but seeks to acquire it.
—Niccolò Machiavelli, c. 1515Imagination is the secret and marrow of civilization. It is the very eye of faith.
—Henry Ward Beecher, 1887There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.
—Michel de Montaigne, 1580Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.
—Joseph Stalin, 1934Fame will go by and, so long, I’ve had you, fame. If it goes by, I’ve always known it was fickle. So at least it’s something I experienced, but that’s not where I live.
—Marilyn Monroe, 1962An American will build a house in which to pass his old age and sell it before the roof is on.
—Alexis de Tocqueville, 1840I work for a government I despise for ends I think criminal.
—John Maynard Keynes, 1917A monument is money wasted. My memory will live on if my life has deserved it.
—Pliny the Younger, c. 109There’s plenty of water in the universe without life, but nowhere is there life without water.
—Sylvia Alice Earle, 1995A self-made man is one who believes in luck and sends his son to Oxford.
—Christina Stead, 1938