I have always found it in mine own experience an easier matter to devise many and profitable inventions than to dispose of one of them to the good of the author himself.
—Hugh Plat, 1595
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Quotes
Children are all foreigners. We treat them as such.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1839No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.
—Samuel Johnson, 1776Spit not in the well; you may have to drink its water.
—French proverbI am a man: I consider nothing human alien to me.
—Terence, 163 BCIn meeting again after a separation, acquaintances ask after our outward life, friends after our inner life.
—Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, 1880We must confess that at present the rich predominate, but the future will be for the virtuous and ingenious.
—Jean de La Bruyère, 1688Celibacy goes deeper than the flesh.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1920Men are able to assist fortune but not to thwart her. They can weave her designs, but they cannot destroy them.
—Niccolò Machiavelli, 1531The fact is certain because it is impossible.
—Tertullian, c. 200Divine nature gave the fields; human art built the cities.
—Marcus Terentius Varro, c. 70 BCWhen man wanted to make a machine that would walk, he created the wheel, which does not resemble a leg.
—Guillaume Apollinaire, 1917Friend! It is a common word, often lightly used. Like other good and beautiful things, it may be tarnished by careless handling.
—Harriet Jacobs, 1861