Some memories are realities, and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again.
—Willa Cather, 1918
Archive
Quotes
I never know quite when I’m not writing. Sometimes my wife comes up to me at a party and says, Dammit, Thurber, stop writing. She usually catches me in the middle of a paragraph. Or my daughter will look up from the dinner table and ask, Is he sick? No, my wife says, he’s writing something.
—James Thurber, 1955It is a greater advantage to be honestly educated than honorably born.
—Erasmus, 1518Man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all.
—Aristotle, c. 350 BCThe most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.
—Steve Biko, 1971You should never have your best trousers on when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.
—Henrik Ibsen, 1882What reason weaves, by passion is undone.
—Alexander Pope, 1972The Romans would never have found time to conquer the world if they had been obliged first to learn Latin.
—Heinrich Heine, 1827Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own thoughts, unguarded.
—The Dhammapada, c. 400 BCAll men that are ruined, are ruined on the side of their natural propensities.
—Edmund Burke, 1796To know the abyss of the darkness and not to fear it, to entrust oneself to it and whatever may arise from it—what greater gift?
—Ursula K. Le Guin, 1975Reality is always the foe of famous names.
—Petrarch, 1337The planet keeps to the astronomer’s timetable, but the wind still bloweth almost where it listeth.
—John Henry Poynting, 1899