There are twelve hours in the day, and above fifty in the night.
—Madame de Sévigné, 1671
Archive
Quotes
I am not Athenian or Greek but a citizen of the world.
—Socrates, c. 420 BCPeace is a natural effect of trade.
—Montesquieu, 1748Is it a fact—or have I dreamed it—that, by means of electricity, the world of matter has become a great nerve, vibrating thousands of miles in a breathless point of time?
—Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1851Someone who knows too much finds it hard not to lie.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1947The atavistic urge toward danger persists and its satisfaction is called adventure.
—John Steinbeck, 1941Vanity of vanities; all is vanity.
—Ecclesiastes, c. 250 BCFriends are ourselves.
—John Donne, 1603I had rather be in a state of misery and envied for my supposed happiness than in a state of happiness and pitied for my supposed misery.
—Elizabeth Inchbald, 1793All that we know is nothing can be known.
—Lord Byron, 1812When nature is overriden, she takes her revenge.
—Marya Mannes, 1958In most cases men willingly believe what they wish.
—Julius Caesar, 52 BCIt is impossible to tell which of the two dispositions we find in men is more harmful in a republic, that which seeks to maintain an established position or that which has none but seeks to acquire it.
—Niccolò Machiavelli, c. 1515