Archive

Quotes

Style is the image of character.

—Edward Gibbon, c. 1789

Despotism achieves great things illegally; democracy doesn’t even take the trouble to achieve small things legally.

—Honoré de Balzac, 1831

I am sure of this: that if everybody was to drink their bottle a day, there would not be half the disorders in the world there are now.

—Jane Austen, c. 1798

You can be up to your boobies in white satin, with gardenias in your hair and no sugar cane for miles, but you can still be working on a plantation.

—Billie Holiday, 1956

Are we not ourselves nature, nature without end?

—Stanisław Lem, 1961

Had Cleopatra’s nose been shorter, the whole face of the world would have changed.

—Blaise Pascal, 1658

The pleasure we hold in esteem for the course of our lives ought to have a greater share of our time dedicated to it; we should refuse no occasion nor omit any opportunity of drinking, and always have it in our minds.

—Michel de Montaigne, 1580

An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.

—James Russell Lowell, c. 1865

Nature never jests.

—Albrecht von Haller, 1751

The gift of a common tongue is a priceless inheritance and it may well some day become the foundation of a common citizenship.

—Winston Churchill, 1943

Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.

—William Blake, c. 1803

He who laugheth too much, hath the nature of a fool; he that laugheth not at all, hath the nature of an old cat.

—Thomas Fuller, 1732

I don’t believe in an afterlife, although I am bringing a change of underwear.

—Woody Allen, 1971