It’s your business when your neighbor’s wall is in flames.
—Horace, 19 BC
Archive
Quotes
Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live.
—Socrates, c. 430 BCIt’s only the futility of the first flood that prevents God from sending a second.
—Sébastien-Roch Nicolas Chamfort, c. 1794The pleasure we hold in esteem for the course of our lives ought to have a greater share of our time dedicated to it; we should refuse no occasion nor omit any opportunity of drinking, and always have it in our minds.
—Michel de Montaigne, 1580Be courteous to all but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence.
—George Washington, 1783What one man can invent another can discover.
—Arthur Conan Doyle, 1905Patriotism is an ephemeral motive that scarcely ever outlasts the particular threat to society that aroused it.
—Denis Diderot, 1774“Work” does not exist in a nonliterate world. The primitive hunter or fisherman did no work, any more than does the poet, painter, or thinker of today. Where the whole man is involved there is no work.
—Marshall McLuhan, 1964Nature has planted in our minds an insatiable desire to seek the truth.
—Marcus Tullius Cicero, 45 BCTo get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.
—Oscar Wilde, 1891Some of us would be greatly astonished to learn the reasons why others respect us.
—Marquis de Vauvenargues, 1746It is more blessed to give than to receive.
—Acts of the Apostles, c. 80The great difficulty lies in trying to transpose last night’s moment to a day which has no knowledge of it.
—Zora Neale Hurston, 1942