Archive

Quotes

Sex is the last refuge of the miserable.

—Quentin Crisp, 1968

It is impossible to live pleasurably without living wisely, well, and justly, and impossible to live wisely, well, and justly without living pleasurably.

—Epicurus, c. 300 BC

When we define democracy now, it must still be as a thing hoped for but not seen.

—Pearl S. Buck, 1941

For what do we live but to make sport for our neighbors and laugh at them in our turn?

—Jane Austen, 1813

Happiness is not something you can catch and lock up in a vault like wealth. Happiness is nothing but everyday living seen through a veil.

—Zora Neale Hurston, 1939

I have loved war too well.

—Louis XIV, 1715

In a court of fowls, the cockroach never wins its case.

—Rwandan proverb

Jests and scoffs do lessen majesty and greatness and should be far from great personages and men of wisdom.

—Henry Peacham, 1622

The passion for setting people right is in itself an afflictive disease.

—Marianne Moore, 1935

The planet keeps to the astronomer’s timetable, but the wind still bloweth almost where it listeth.

—John Henry Poynting, 1899

Speak without regard for the consequences, and it is too late for silence when disaster strikes.

—Huan Kuan, 81 BC

I am not Athenian or Greek but a citizen of the world.

—Socrates, c. 420 BC

Anyone who has passed through the regular gradations of a classical education, and is not made a fool by it, may consider himself as having had a very narrow escape.

—William Hazlitt, 1821