It has always been my practice to cast a long paragraph in a single mold, to try it by my ear, to deposit it in my memory, but to suspend the action of the pen till I had given the last polish to my work.
—Edward Gibbon, c. 1790
Archive
Quotes
A private sin is not so prejudicial in this world as a public indecency.
—Miguel de Cervantes, 1615It would be madness, and inconsistency, to suppose that things which have never yet been performed can be performed without employing some hitherto untried means.
—Francis Bacon, 1620We must select the illusion which appeals to our temperament and embrace it with passion if we want to be happy.
—Cyril Connolly, 1944Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands, and goes to work.
—Carl Sandburg, 1959What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham.
—Frederick Douglass, 1855What the brain does by itself is infinitely more fascinating and complex than any response it can make to chemical stimulation.
—Ursula K. Le Guin, 1971The true mission of American sports is to prepare young men for war.
—Dwight D. Eisenhower, c. 1952Secrecy lies at the very core of power.
—Elias Canetti, 1960A joke is at most a temporary rebellion against virtue, and its aim is not to degrade the human being but to remind him that he is already degraded.
—George Orwell, 1945The sleep of reason produces monsters.
—Francisco Goya, 1799He who sings frightens away his ills.
—Miguel de Cervantes, 1605There is no crime without precedent.
—Seneca the Younger, c. 60