Archive

Quotes

How can we bear misfortune most easily? If we see our enemies faring worse.

—Thales of Miletus, c. 585 BC

If anything affects your eye, you hasten to have it removed; if anything affects your mind, you postpone the cure for a year.

—Horace, 20 BC

Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.

—Henry Kissinger, 1972

That which is evil is soon learned. 

—John Ray, 1670

Conservation is not merely a thing to be enshrined in outdoor museums, but a way of living on land.

—Aldo Leopold, 1933

O citizens, first acquire wealth; you can practice virtue afterward.

—Horace, c. 8 BC

Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.

—Jane Austen, 1818

The past is always tense and the future, perfect.

—Zadie Smith, 2000

Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business.

—Tom Robbins, 1976

It is noble to die before doing anything that deserves death.

—Anaxandrides, c. 376

Fate leads the willing and drags along those who hang back.

—Cleanthes, c. 250 BC

The traveler with nothing on him sings in the robber’s face.

—Juvenal, c. 125

Our allotted time is the passing of a shadow.

—Book of Wisdom, c. 100 BC