The subconscious is ceaselessly murmuring, and it is by listening to these murmurs that one hears the truth.
—Gaston Bachelard, 1960
Archive
Quotes
Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends.
—Alexander Pope, 1709Show me someone who never gossips, and I’ll show you someone who isn’t interested in people.
—Barbara Walters, 1975Nobody, sir, dies willingly.
—Antiphanes, c. 370 BCPeople react to fear, not love—they don’t teach that in Sunday school, but it’s true.
—Richard Nixon, 1975A private sin is not so prejudicial in this world as a public indecency.
—Miguel de Cervantes, 1615What touches all shall be approved by all.
—Edward I, 1295What one knows is, in youth, of little moment; they know enough who know how to learn.
—Henry Adams, 1907Unfortunately, humanitarianism has been the mark of an inhuman time.
—G.K. Chesterton, 1932I had rather be in a state of misery and envied for my supposed happiness than in a state of happiness and pitied for my supposed misery.
—Elizabeth Inchbald, 1793Nowadays three witty turns of phrase and a lie make a writer.
—G.C. Lichtenberg, c. 1780Ocean. A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man—who has no gills.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1906The mere existence of nuclear weapons by the thousands is an incontrovertible sign of human insanity.
—Isaac Asimov, 1988