To achieve harmony in bad taste is the height of elegance.
—Jean Genet, 1949
Archive
Quotes
Fear is the foundation of most governments.
—John Adams, 1776The waters are nature’s storehouse, in which she locks up her wonders.
—Izaak Walton, 1653Go to the ant, you lazybones; consider its ways, and be wise.
—Book of Proverbs, c. 350 BCTo do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual.
—Oscar Wilde, 1891If there is a technological advance without a social advance, there is, almost automatically, an increase in human misery.
—Michael Harrington, 1962And your very flesh shall be a great poem.
—Walt Whitman, 1855Religion is by no means a proper subject of conversation in mixed company.
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 1754Humiliation is the beginning of sanctification.
—John Donne, c. 1629The children of the revolution are always ungrateful, and the revolution must be grateful that it is so.
—Ursula K. Le Guin, 1983Animals are such agreeable friends—they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.
—George Eliot, 1857Think rich. Look poor.
—Andy Warhol, 1975The human working stock is of interest only insofar as it is profitable.
—Simone de Beauvoir, 1970