I said of laughter, “It is mad,” and of pleasure, “What use is it?”
—Book of Ecclesiastes, 225 BC
Archive
Quotes
One of the things men should most strive to do is win a good reputation and see that no one questions it.
—Juan Manuel, 1335Oh, democracy! Whither are you leading us?
—Aristophanes, 414 BCNo lyric poems live long or please many people which are written by drinkers of water.
—Horace, 20 BCMen have an extraordinarily erroneous opinion of their position in nature; and the error is ineradicable.
—W. Somerset Maugham, 1896Of all objects that I have ever seen, there is none which affects my imagination so much as the sea or ocean. A troubled ocean, to a man who sails upon it, is, I think, the biggest object that he can see in motion, and consequently gives his imagination one of the highest kinds of pleasure that can arise from greatness.
—Joseph Addison, 1712When I do a show, the whole show revolves around me, and if I don’t show up, they can just forget it.
—Ethel Merman, c. 1955A large city cannot be experientially known; its life is too manifold for any individual to be able to participate in it.
—Aldous Huxley, 1934Inventions that are not made, like babies that are not born, are rarely missed.
—John Kenneth Galbraith, 1958As usual, what we call “progress” is the exchange of one nuisance for another nuisance.
—Havelock Ellis, 1914To call a fashion wearable is the kiss of death. No new fashion worth its salt is ever wearable.
—Eugenia Sheppard, 1960There never is absolute birth nor complete death, in the strict sense, consisting in the separation of the soul from the body. What we call births are developments and growths, while what we call deaths are envelopments and diminutions.
—Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, 1714I work for a government I despise for ends I think criminal.
—John Maynard Keynes, 1917