It belongs to a nobleman to weep in an hour of disaster.
—Euripides, 412 BC
Archive
Quotes
To ensure the adoration of a theorem for any length of time, faith is not enough; a police force is needed as well.
—Albert Camus, 1951The path of social advancement is, and must be, strewn with broken friendships.
—H.G. Wells, 1905The more sifted, the finer the flour; the more often repeated, the rougher the gossip.
—Korean proverbBy the blessing of the upright the city is exalted, but it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked.
—Book of Proverbs, c. 350 BCMan is the one name belonging to every nation upon earth: there is one soul and many tongues, one spirit and various sounds; every country has its own speech, but the subjects of speech are common to all.
—Tertullian, c. 217In a true democracy, everyone can be upper-class and live in Connecticut.
—Lisa Birnbach, 1980The future comes like an unwelcome guest.
—Edmund Gosse, 1873There are twelve hours in the day, and above fifty in the night.
—Madame de Sévigné, 1671In our family, as far as we are concerned, we were born and what happened before that is myth.
—V.S. Pritchett, 1968All attempts to adapt our ethical code to our situation in the technological age have failed.
—Max Born, 1968What is death? A scary mask. Take it off—see, it doesn’t bite.
—Epictetus, c. 110We are able to find everything in our memory, which is like a dispensary or chemical laboratory in which chance steers our hand sometimes to a soothing drug and sometimes to a dangerous poison.
—Marcel Proust, c. 1922