The pleasure we hold in esteem for the course of our lives ought to have a greater share of our time dedicated to it; we should refuse no occasion nor omit any opportunity of drinking, and always have it in our minds.
—Michel de Montaigne, 1580
Archive
Quotes
Seafarers go to sleep in the evening not knowing whether they will find themselves at the bottom of the sea the next morning.
—Jean de Joinville, c. 1305According to the law of custom, and perhaps of reason, foreign travel completes the education of an English gentleman.
—Edward Gibbon, c. 1794As far as I can see, the history of experimental art in the twentieth century is intimately bound up with the experience of intoxification.
—Will Self, 1994Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.
—Jeremy Bentham, c. 1832The smell of rain is rich with life.
—Estela Portillo Trambley, 1975To put one’s trust in God is only a longer way of saying that one will chance it.
—Samuel Butler, c. 1890The art of invention grows young with the things invented.
—Francis Bacon, 1605Alone, alone, all, all alone, / Alone on a wide, wide sea!
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1798I cannot live without books, but fewer will suffice where amusement, and not use, is the only future object.
—Thomas Jefferson, 1815Possessions, outward success, publicity, luxury—to me these have always been contemptible. I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best both for the body and the mind.
—Albert Einstein, 1931I will never again command an army in America if we must carry along paid spies. I will banish myself to some foreign country first.
—William Tecumseh Sherman, 1863People commonly travel the world over to see rivers and mountains, new stars, garish birds, freak fish, grotesque breeds of human; they fall into an animal stupor that gapes at existence, and they think they have seen something.
—Søren Kierkegaard, 1843