Archive

Quotes

The temple bell stops but I still hear the sound coming out of the flowers.

—Basho, c. 1690

What will not attract a man’s stare at sea?—a gull, a turtle, a flying fish!

—Richard Burton, 1883

Who sleepeth with dogs shall rise with fleas.

—John Florio, 1578

There is only one antidote to mental suffering and that is physical pain.

—Karl Marx, 1860

Mother died today. Or maybe it was yesterday, I don’t know. 

—Albert Camus, 1942

We die of comfort and by conflict live.

—May Sarton, 1953

I have often been convinced that a democracy is incapable of empire.

—Thucydides, c. 404 BC

Speak and speed; the close mouth catches no flies.

—Benjamin Franklin, c. 1732

Once something becomes discernible, or understandable, we no longer need to repeat it. We can destroy it.

—Robert Wilson, 1991

Usually speaking, the worst-bred person in company is a young traveler just returned from abroad.

—Jonathan Swift, c. 1730

When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong.

—Eugene V. Debs, 1918

Two crimes undid me: a poem and a mistake. 

—Ovid, 10

Politics is the art of the possible.

—Otto von Bismarck, 1867