A passion for horses, players, and gladiators seems to be the epidemic folly of the times. The child receives it in his mother’s womb; he brings it with him into the world, and in a mind so possessed, what room for science, or any generous purpose?
—Tacitus, c. 100
Archive
Quotes
In time history must become a fairy tale—it will become again what it was in the beginning.
—Novalis, c. 1798If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
—Mark Twain, 1894Hang work! I wish that all the year were holiday; I am sure that Indolence—indefeasible Indolence—is the true state of man.
—Charles Lamb, 1805The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.
—LaoziThere is something stirring in the way civilization gapes like a savage at the achievements of nature.
—Karl Kraus, 1909Journalists belong in the gutter, because that is where the ruling classes throw their guilty secrets.
—Gerald Priestland, 1988The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a star.
—Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, 1825A man is either free or he is not. There cannot be any apprenticeship for freedom.
—Amiri Baraka, 1962I must be a mermaid, Rango. I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living.
—Anaïs Nin, 1950I never yet could make out why men are so fond of hunting; they often hurt themselves, often spoil good horses, and tear up the fields—and all for a hare or a fox or a stag that they could get more easily some other way.
—Anna Sewell, 1877More pernicious nonsense was never devised by man than treaties of commerce.
—Benjamin Disraeli, 1880Best is water.
—Pindar, 476 BC