A fool’s brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence university education.
—George Bernard Shaw, 1903
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Quotes
They say, “We only have the life of this world. We die and we live, and nothing destroys us but time.” Yet, not true knowledge have they of this—only belief.
—The Qur’an, c. 620Water, thou hast no taste, no color, no odor; canst not be defined, art relished while ever mysterious.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1939Reading makes immigrants of us all. It takes us away from home, but most important, it finds homes for us everywhere.
—Hazel Rochman, 1995The more enlightened our houses are, the more their walls ooze ghosts.
—Italo Calvino, 1967The thirsty earth soaks up the rain, / And drinks, and gapes for drink again.
—Abraham Cowley, 1656To be sick is to enjoy monarchal prerogatives.
—Charles Lamb, 1833Famous, adj. Conspicuously miserable.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1906For most of us, nighttime dreaming brings us closer to our identities and our power than any activity in the waking world.
—Walter Mosley, 2000True originality consists not in a new manner but in a new vision.
—Edith Wharton, 1924The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honor or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1774My mother protected me from the world and my father threatened me with it.
—Quentin Crisp, 1968Making a film means, first of all, to tell a story. That story can be an improbable one, but it should never be banal. It must be dramatic and human. What is drama, after all, but life with the dull bits cut out?
—Alfred Hitchcock, 1962