Archive

Quotes

The first thing that a new migrant sends to his family back home isn’t money; it’s a story.

—Suketu Mehta, 2019

Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.

—Herman Melville, 1851

It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me.

—Martin Luther King Jr., 1962

The merchant always has fresh losses to expect, and the dread of base poverty forbids his rest.

—Decimus Magnus Ausonius, c. 390

That which the sober man keeps in his breast, the drunken man lets out at the lips. Astute people, when they want to ascertain a man’s true character, make him drunk.

—Martin Luther, 1569

If you must take care that your opinions do not differ in the least from those of the person with whom you are talking, you might just as well be alone.

—Yoshida Kenko, c. 1330

It is hard when nature does not respect your intentions, and she never does exactly respect them.

—Wendell Berry, 1985

Every man must descend into the flesh to meet mankind.

—G.K. Chesterton, 1910

Seek not water, only show you are thirsty, / That water may spring up all around you.

—Rumi, c. 1260

Someone will remember us
I say
even in another time.

—Sappho, c. 600 BC

Scandal begins where the police leave off.

—Karl Kraus, 1909

Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.

—Benjamin Franklin, 1776

Time robs us of all, even of memory.

—Virgil, c. 40 BC