It hurts to watch the fluency of a body acclimated to its shackling.
—Leslie Jamison, 2014
Archive
Quotes
Tell us your phobias and we will tell you what you are afraid of.
—Robert Benchley, 1935I hate the present modes of living and getting a living. Farming and shopkeeping and working at a trade or profession are all odious to me. I should relish getting my living in a simple, primitive fashion.
—Henry David Thoreau, 1855Modern life is often a mechanical oppression, and liquor is the only mechanical relief.
—Ernest Hemingway, 1935Nature’s rules have no exceptions.
—Herbert Spencer, 1851A self-made man is one who believes in luck and sends his son to Oxford.
—Christina Stead, 1938All progress is based upon a universal, innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.
—Samuel Butler, c. 1890Trade’s proud empire hastes to swift decay.
—Oliver Goldsmith, 1770The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
—H.L. Mencken, 1921The unknown is the largest need of the intellect.
—Emily Dickinson, 1876If anything affects your eye, you hasten to have it removed; if anything affects your mind, you postpone the cure for a year.
—Horace, 20 BCCarnal embrace is the practice of throwing one’s arms around a side of beef.
—Tom Stoppard, 1993Watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you, because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.
—Roald Dahl, 1990