Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.
—Gore Vidal, 1973
Archive
Quotes
There was a great deal of drinking among us but little drunkenness. We all seemed to feel that Prohibition was a personal affront and that we had a moral duty to undermine it.
—Elizabeth Anderson, 1969God sells us all things at the price of labor.
—Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1500Never make a defense or apology before you be accused.
—Charles I, 1636Play, wherein persons of condition, especially ladies, waste so much of their time, is a plain instance to me that men cannot be perfectly idle; they must be doing something, for how else could they sit so many hours toiling at that which generally gives more vexation than delight to people whilst they are actually engaged in it?
—John Locke, 1693In dealing with the dead, if we treat them as if they were entirely dead, that would show a want of affection and should not be done; or, if we treat them as if they were entirely alive, that would show a want of wisdom and should not be done.
—Confucius, c. 500 BCThe ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.
—Maya Angelou, 1986Every city has a sex and an age which have nothing to do with demography. Rome is feminine. So is Odessa. London is a teenager, an urchin, and in this hasn’t changed since the time of Dickens. Paris, I believe, is a man in his twenties in love with an older woman.
—John Berger, 1987Jesters do oft prove prophets.
—William Shakespeare, c. 1605If a man will observe as he walks the streets, I believe he will find the merriest countenances in mourning coaches.
—Jonathan Swift, 1706For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?
—Jane Austen, 1813I drink for the thirst to come.
—François Rabelais, 1535The sea hath no king but God alone.
—Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1881