Where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experiment.
—George Santayana, c. 1905
Archive
Quotes
What one man can invent another can discover.
—Arthur Conan Doyle, 1905The mind of man is capable of anything.
—Guy de Maupassant, 1884The envious die not once, but as often as the envied win applause.
—Baltasar Gracián, 1647The Church says that the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in the shadow than in the Church.
—Ferdinand Magellan, c. 1510I ride rough waters and shall sink with no one to save me.
—Virginia Woolf, 1931The brightest light burns the quickest.
—Olive Beatrice Muir, 1900The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.
—Dean Acheson, 1970What a man does abroad by night requires and implies more deliberate energy than what he is encouraged to do in the sunshine.
—Henry David Thoreau, 1852If you must take care that your opinions do not differ in the least from those of the person with whom you are talking, you might just as well be alone.
—Yoshida Kenko, c. 1330Fire destroys that which feeds it.
—Simone Weil, c. 1940There are some who, if a cat accidentally comes into the room, though they neither see it nor are told of it, will presently be in a sweat and ready to die away.
—Increase Mather, 1684Let us make our own mistakes, but let us take comfort in the knowledge that they are our own mistakes.
—Tom Mboya, 1958