Every creature in the world is like a book and a picture, to us, and a mirror.
—Alain de Lille, c. 1200
Archive
Quotes
A regime which combines perpetual surveillance with total indulgence is hardly conducive to healthy development.
—P.D. James, 1992Being offended is the natural consequence of leaving one’s home.
—Fran Lebowitz, 1981An American will build a house in which to pass his old age and sell it before the roof is on.
—Alexis de Tocqueville, 1840See one promontory (said Socrates of old), one mountain, one sea, one river, and see all.
—Robert Burton, c. 1620I am ill every time it blows hard, and nothing but my enthusiastic love for the profession keeps me one hour at sea.
—Admiral Horatio Nelson, 1804From hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee.
—Herman Melville, 1851The noblest kind of retribution is not to become like your enemy.
—Marcus Aurelius, c. 175It’s only the futility of the first flood that prevents God from sending a second.
—Sébastien-Roch Nicolas Chamfort, c. 1794For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.
—Book of Ecclesiastes, c. 250 BCReason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
—George Washington, 1796I’ve a grand memory for forgetting.
—Robert Louis Stevenson, 1886Nothing is hidden from the eyes of the observing world.
—Aleksandr Pushkin, 1837