The unknown is the largest need of the intellect.
—Emily Dickinson, 1876
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Quotes
Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own thoughts, unguarded.
—The Dhammapada, c. 400 BCArt is a jealous mistress, and if a man have a genius for painting, poetry, music, architecture, or philosophy, he makes a bad husband and an ill provider.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1860I don’t believe in total freedom for the artist. Left on his own, free to do anything he likes, the artist ends up doing nothing at all. If there’s one thing that’s dangerous for an artist, it’s precisely this question of total freedom, waiting for inspiration and all the rest of it.
—Federico Fellini, c. 1950A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.
—George Bernard Shaw, 1944When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong.
—Eugene V. Debs, 1918Journeys, like artists, are born and not made. A thousand differing circumstances contribute to them, few of them willed or determined by the will—whatever we may think.
—Lawrence Durrell, 1957Who draws his sword against his prince must throw away the scabbard.
—James Howell, 1659Think where man’s glory most begins and ends, / And say my glory was I had such friends.
—W.B. Yeats, 1937We should look for someone to eat and drink with before looking for something to eat and drink, for dining alone is leading the life of a lion or wolf.
—Epicurus, c. 300 BCThe future...something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.
—C.S. Lewis, 1941If it were not for the intellectual snobs who pay in solid cash—the tribute which philistinism owes to culture, the arts would perish with their starving practitioners. Let us thank heaven for hypocrisy.
—Aldous Huxley, 1926Avoid the talk of men. For talk is mischievous, light, and easily raised, but hard to bear and difficult to be rid of. Talk never wholly dies away when many people voice her: even talk is in some ways divine.
—Hesiod, c. 700 BC