To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual.
—Oscar Wilde, 1891
Archive
Quotes
Everything that deceives does so by casting a spell.
—Plato, c. 375 BCThere is no greater disaster than not to know contentment.
—Laozi, c. 550 BCBusiness is other people’s money.
—Delphine de Girardin, 1852Better a thousand enemies outside the house than one inside.
—Arabic proverbTrue friendship withstands time, distance, and silence.
—Isabel Allende, 2000Drink today and drown all sorrow; / You shall perhaps not do it tomorrow.
—John Fletcher, 1625Thou art not to learn the humors and tricks of that old bald cheater, time.
—Ben Jonson, 1601If there was ever a just war since the world began, it is this in which America is now engaged.
—Thomas Paine, 1778Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth but not its twin.
—Barbara Kingsolver, 1990Science is a cemetery of dead ideas.
—Miguel de Unamuno, 1913Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.
—Jeremy Bentham, c. 1832Perish the universe, provided I have my revenge.
—Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac, 1654