It has always been my practice to cast a long paragraph in a single mold, to try it by my ear, to deposit it in my memory, but to suspend the action of the pen till I had given the last polish to my work.
—Edward Gibbon, c. 1790
Archive
Quotes
All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.
—Aristotle, c. 330 BCToo often, where we need water we find guns.
—Ban Ki-moon, 2008The subconscious is ceaselessly murmuring, and it is by listening to these murmurs that one hears the truth.
—Gaston Bachelard, 1960As usual, what we call “progress” is the exchange of one nuisance for another nuisance.
—Havelock Ellis, 1914The most beautiful makeup of a woman is passion. But cosmetics are easier to buy.
—Yves Saint Laurent, 1978It is He who has subdued the ocean so that you may eat of its fresh fish and bring up from its depth ornaments to wear. Behold the ships plowing their course through it. All this, that you may seek His bounty and render thanks.
—The Qur’an, c. 625There was no treachery too base for the world to commit.
—Virginia Woolf, 1927The money market is to a commercial nation what the heart is to man.
—William Pitt, 1805Death from the bubonic plague is rated, with crucifixion, among the nastiest human experiences of all.
—Guy R. Williams, 1975All art is a revolt against man’s fate.
—André Malraux, 1951I must be a mermaid, Rango. I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living.
—Anaïs Nin, 1950I shall be an autocrat: that’s my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that’s his.
—Catherine the Great, c. 1796