He may be a patriot for Austria, but the question is whether he is a patriot for me.
—Emperor Francis Joseph, c. 1850
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Quotes
Health indeed is a precious thing, to recover and preserve which we undergo any misery, drink bitter potions, freely give our goods—restore a man to his health, his purse lies open to thee.
—Robert Burton, 1621I have never felt salvation in nature. I love cities above all.
—Michelangelo Antonioni, 1967We do not suffer by accident.
—Jane Austen, 1813When action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep.
—Ursula K. Le Guin, 1969He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.
—Francis Bacon, 1625To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life.
—Walter Pater, 1873It is noble to die before doing anything that deserves death.
—Anaxandrides, c. 376They say that gifts persuade even the gods.
—Euripides, 431 BCEvery city has a sex and an age which have nothing to do with demography. Rome is feminine. So is Odessa. London is a teenager, an urchin, and in this hasn’t changed since the time of Dickens. Paris, I believe, is a man in his twenties in love with an older woman.
—John Berger, 1987If we pretend to respect the artist at all, we must allow him his freedom of choice, in the face, in particular cases, of innumerable presumptions that the choice will not fructify. Art derives a considerable part of its beneficial exercise from flying in the face of presumptions.
—Henry James, 1884The past is always tense and the future, perfect.
—Zadie Smith, 2000When you have only two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other.
—Chinese proverb