Archive

Quotes

Some to the common pulpits, and cry out / “Liberty, freedom, and enfranchisement!”

—William Shakespeare, c. 1599

Often an entire city has suffered because of an evil man.

—Hesiod, c. 700 BC

Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.

—Joseph Stalin, 1934

Oil! Our secret god, our secret sharer, our magic wand, fulfiller of our every desire, our coconspirator, the sine qua non in all we do!

—Margaret Atwood, 2015

I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again: your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.

—Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1940

New things are always ugly.

—Willa Cather, 1921

Egypt was the mother of magicians.

—Clement of Alexandria, c. 200

The waters are nature’s storehouse, in which she locks up her wonders.

—Izaak Walton, 1653

There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.

—Anthony Trollope, 1862

It is delightful to read on the spot the impressions and opinions of tourists who visited a hundred years ago, in the vehicles and with the aesthetic prejudices of the period, the places which you are visiting now. The voyage ceases to be a mere tour through space; you travel through time and thought as well.

—Aldous Huxley, 1925

Pride and excess bring disaster for man.

—Xunzi, 250 BC

I don’t believe in total freedom for the artist. Left on his own, free to do anything he likes, the artist ends up doing nothing at all. If there’s one thing that’s dangerous for an artist, it’s precisely this question of total freedom, waiting for inspiration and all the rest of it.

—Federico Fellini, c. 1950

Traveling is the ruin of all happiness! There’s no looking at a building here after seeing Italy.

—Fanny Burney, 1782