They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.
—Francis Bacon, 1605Quotes
Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made—through disobedience and through rebellion.
—Oscar Wilde, 1891Sex is more exciting on the screen and between the pages than between the sheets.
—Andy Warhol, 1975Anyone who has a child should train him to be either a physicist or a ballet dancer. Then he’ll escape.
—W.H. Auden, 1947Emigration is easy, but immigration is something else. To flee, yes; but to be accepted?
—Victoria Wolff, 1943Football causeth fighting, brawling, contention, quarrel picking, murder, homicide and great effusion of bloode, as daily experience teacheth.
—Philip Stubbes, 1583We all have a contract with the public—in us they see themselves, or what they would like to be.
—Clark Gable, 1935The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
—Aristotle, c. 330 BCHunting is all that’s worth living for—all time is lost what is not spent in hunting—it is like the air we breathe—if we have it not we die—it’s the sport of kings, the image of war without its guilt.
—Robert Smith Surtees, 1843Nature is immovable.
—Euripides, c. 415 BCThe Mediterranean has the colors of a mackerel, changeable I mean. You don’t always know if it is green or violet—you can’t even say it’s blue, because the next moment the changing light has taken on a tinge of pink or gray.
—Vincent van Gogh, 1888One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards.
—Oscar Wilde, 1895I have never felt salvation in nature. I love cities above all.
—Michelangelo Antonioni, 1967