Archive

Quotes

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be a Catholic) how to act and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote.

—John F. Kennedy, 1960

Music today is nothing more than the art of performing difficult pieces.

—Voltaire, 1759

The human body is the best picture of the human soul.

—Ludwig Wittgenstein, c. 1947

Anyone who has passed through the regular gradations of a classical education, and is not made a fool by it, may consider himself as having had a very narrow escape.

—William Hazlitt, 1821

The envious die not once, but as often as the envied win applause.

—Baltasar Gracián, 1647

Superstitions are habits rather than beliefs.

—Marlene Dietrich, 1962

There is no greater sorrow than to recall a happy time in the midst of wretchedness.

—Dante Alighieri, c. 1321

There is no solitude in the world like that of the big city.

—Kathleen Norris, 1931

Some writers take to drink, others take to audiences.

—Gore Vidal, 1981

At the worst, a house unkept cannot be so distressing as a life unlived.

—Rose Macaulay, 1925

Curses are like young chickens, they always come home to roost.

—Robert Southey, 1809

Don’t talk to me about naval tradition. It’s nothing but rum, sodomy, and the lash.

—Winston Churchill, 1939

I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast, for I intend to go in harm’s way.

—John Paul Jones, 1778