We should not say that one man’s hour is worth another man’s hour, but rather that one man during an hour is worth just as much as another man during an hour. Time is everything, man is nothing; he is, at most, time’s carcass.
—Karl Marx, 1847
Archive
Quotes
Toil is man’s allotment; toil of brain, or toil of hands, or a grief that’s more than either, the grief and sin of idleness.
—Herman Melville, 1849He who would have clear water should go to the fountainhead.
—Italian proverbThe deed is everything, the glory naught.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1832When we see a natural style we are quite amazed and delighted, because we expected to see an author and find a man.
—Blaise Pascal, c. 1657He who sings frightens away his ills.
—Miguel de Cervantes, 1605Some memories are like lucky charms, talismans, one shouldn’t tell about them or they’ll lose their power.
—Iris Murdoch, 1985The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes “sightseeing.”
—Daniel Boorstin, 1961What harm is there in getting knowledge and learning, were it from a sot, a pot, a fool, a winter mitten, or an old slipper?
—François Rabelais, 1533Revolutions are celebrated when they are no longer dangerous.
—Pierre Boulez, 1989One of the secrets of a happy life is continuous small treats.
—Iris Murdoch, 1978I’ve been bathing in the poem / Of star-infused and milky sea / Devouring the azure greens.
—Arthur Rimbaud, 1871My language is the common prostitute that I turn into a virgin.
—Karl Kraus, c. 1910