It has always been my practice to cast a long paragraph in a single mold, to try it by my ear, to deposit it in my memory, but to suspend the action of the pen till I had given the last polish to my work.
—Edward Gibbon, c. 1790
Archive
Quotes
There will always be a lost dog somewhere that will prevent me from being happy.
—Jean Anouilh, 1934Don’t try to make a profit on a bad trade; just try to find the best place to get out.
—Linda Bradford Raschke, 1992Time, when it is left to itself and no definite demands are made on it, cannot be trusted to move at any recognized pace. Usually it loiters, but just when one has come to count upon its slowness, it may suddenly break into a wild irrational gallop.
—Edith Wharton, 1905I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas and land on barbarous coasts.
—Herman Melville, 1853Slang is as old as speech and the congregating together of people in cities. It is the result of crowding and excitement and artificial life.
—John Camden Hotten, 1859To think ill of mankind, and not wish ill to them, is perhaps the highest wisdom and virtue.
—William Hazlitt, 1823Happiness is no laughing matter.
—Richard Whately, 1843In times of pestilence, gaiety and joyousness are most profitable.
—Jacme d’Agramont, 1348Few sons are equal to their fathers; most fall short, all too few surpass them.
—Homer, c. 750 BCIf the present be compared with the remote past, it is easily seen that in all cities and in all peoples there are the same desires and the same passions as there always were.
—Niccolò Machiavelli, c. 1513No nation was ever ruined by trade.
—Benjamin Franklin, 1774Traveling is like gambling: it is ever connected with winning and losing, and generally where least expected we receive more or less than we hoped for.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1797