A frenzied passion for art is a canker that devours everything else.
—Charles Baudelaire, 1852
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Quotes
The power which the sea requires in the sailor makes a man of him very fast, and the change of shores and population clears his head of much nonsense of his wigwam.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1870I even gave up, for a while, stopping by the window of the room to look out at the lights and deep, illuminated streets. That’s a form of dying, that losing contact with the city like that.
—Philip K. Dick, 1972If you read somebody’s diary, you get what you deserve.
—David Sedaris, 2004Seek not water, only show you are thirsty, / That water may spring up all around you.
—Rumi, c. 1260Honest commerce is the great civilizer. We exchange ideas when we exchange fabrics.
—Robert G. Ingersoll, 1882Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.
—Paul Valéry, 1943Luck takes the step that no one sees.
—Publilius Syrus, c. 50 BCEven diseases have lost their prestige, there aren’t so many of them left.
—Louis-Ferdinand Céline, 1960We must confess that at present the rich predominate, but the future will be for the virtuous and ingenious.
—Jean de La Bruyère, 1688The less intelligent the white man is, the more stupid he thinks the black.
—André Gide, 1927An unjust law is no law at all.
—Saint Augustine, 395We are a commercial people. We cannot boast of our arts, our crafts, our cultivation; our boast is in the wealth we produce.
—Ida M. Tarbell, 1904