How many desolate creatures on the earth have learnt the simple dues of fellowship and social comfort in a hospital.
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1857
Archive
Quotes
Those who go overseas find a change of climate, not a change of soul.
—Horace, c. 20 BCI imagine that one of the first forms of behavior, like one of the first signals, may be reduced to this: “Keep me warm.”
—Michel Serres, 1982A merchant may, perhaps, be a man of an enlarged mind, but there is nothing in trade connected with an enlarged mind.
—Samuel Johnson, 1773Under the pressure of the cares and sorrows of our mortal condition, men have at all times and in all countries, called in some physical aid to their moral consolations—wine, beer, opium, brandy, or tobacco.
—Edmund Burke, 1795Do you suppose it possible to know democracy without knowing the people?
—Xenophon, c. 370 BCSerious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules, and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence; in other words it is war minus the shooting.
—George Orwell, 1945Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.
—Oscar Wilde, 1891Understanding is a very dull occupation.
—Gertrude Stein, 1937You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.
—Mario Cuomo, 1985Luck is not something you can mention in the presence of self-made men.
—E.B. White, 1944I am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.
—George Borrow, 1843Enemies are so stimulating.
—Katharine Hepburn, 1969