Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need—a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing.
—Jerome K. Jerome, 1889
Archive
Quotes
Why is not a rat as good as a rabbit? Why should men eat shrimps and neglect cockroaches?
—Henry Ward Beecher, 1862Lord! I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing.
—Jonathan Swift, 1738Appearances often are deceiving.
—Aesop, c. 550 BCWe are so constituted that we believe the most incredible things, and once they are engraved upon the memory, woe to him who would endeavor to erase them.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1774The bathing was so delightful this morning, and Molly so pressing with me to enjoy myself, that I believe I stayed in rather too long, as since the middle of the day I have felt unreasonably tired. I shall be more careful another time, and shall not bathe tomorrow as I had before intended.
—Jane Austen, 1804Almsgiving tends to perpetuate poverty; aid does away with it once and for all.
—Eva Perón, 1949Imitate the ass in his love to his master.
—St. John Chrysostom, c. 388The oldest voice in the world is the wind.
—Donald Culross Peattie, 1950I hate the present modes of living and getting a living. Farming and shopkeeping and working at a trade or profession are all odious to me. I should relish getting my living in a simple, primitive fashion.
—Henry David Thoreau, 1855When the abbot throws the dice, the whole convent will play.
—Martin Luther, c. 1540Too many people have decided to do without generosity in order to practice charity.
—Albert Camus, 1956Our allotted time is the passing of a shadow.
—Book of Wisdom, c. 100 BC