Archive

Quotes

The fear of the Lord is true wisdom, and he who hath it not can in no way penetrate the true secrets of magic.

—Abraham the Jew, c. 1400

It is so difficult not to become vain about one’s own good luck.

—Simone de Beauvoir, 1963

I have loved the stars too truly to be fearful of the night.

—Sarah Williams, 1868

There is no small pleasure in sweet water.

—Ovid, c. 10

Memory is the only
afterlife I can understand.

—Lisel Mueller, 1996

These useless men ought to be cut up and served at a banquet. I really believe that athletes have less intelligence than swine.

—Dio Chrysostom, c. 95

If you find excrement somewhere in the village, the chief was the one who put it there.

—Congolese proverb

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.

—Arthur Schopenhauer, 1851

A friend who is very near and dear may in time become as useless as a relative.

—George Ade, 1902

Diseases, at least many of them, are like human beings. They are born, they flourish, and they die.

—David Riesman, 1937

War is sweet to those who don’t know it.

—Erasmus, 1508

There is only one antidote to mental suffering and that is physical pain.

—Karl Marx, 1860

The sea hath no king but God alone.

—Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1881