The sea receives us in a proper way only when we are without clothes.
—Pliny the Elder, 77
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Quotes
That obtained in youth may endure like characters engraved in stones.
—Ibn Gabirol, 1040Worldly fame is but a breath of wind that blows now this way, now that, and changes names as it changes in direction.
—Dante Alighieri, c. 1315Time robs us of all, even of memory.
—Virgil, c. 40 BCThe ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.
—Maya Angelou, 1986Once suspicion is aroused, everything feeds it.
—Amelia Edith Barr, 1885What touches all shall be approved by all.
—Edward I, 1295People will not look forward to posterity who never look backward to their ancestors.
—Edmund Burke, 1790If we pretend to respect the artist at all, we must allow him his freedom of choice, in the face, in particular cases, of innumerable presumptions that the choice will not fructify. Art derives a considerable part of its beneficial exercise from flying in the face of presumptions.
—Henry James, 1884What keeps the democracy alive at all but the hatred of excellence, the desire of the base to see no head higher than their own?
—Mary Renault, 1956It is wretched business to be digging a well just as you’re dying of thirst.
—Plautus, c. 193 BCThe more men are massed together, the more corrupt they become. Disease and vice are the sure results of overcrowded cities.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1762Everybody says it; and what everybody says must be true.
—James Fenimore Cooper, 1844