Archive

Quotes

Whoever gulps down wine as a horse gulps down water is called a Scythian.

—Athenaeus, c. 230

A dissolute and intemperate youth hands down the body to old age in a worn-out state.

—Cicero, 44 BC

Appearances often are deceiving.

—Aesop, c. 550 BC

The 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, 1804

Religion! How it dominates man’s mind, how it humiliates and degrades his soul. God is everything, man is nothing, says religion. But out of that nothing God has created a kingdom so despotic, so tyrannical, so cruel, so terribly exacting that naught but gloom and tears and blood have ruled the world since gods began.

—Emma Goldman, 1910

None who have always been free can understand the terrible fascinating power of the hope of freedom to those who are not free.

—Pearl S. Buck, 1943

Technology is so much fun, but we can drown in our technology. The fog of information can drive out knowledge.

—Daniel Boorstin, 1978

And then, sir, there is this consideration: that if the abuse be enormous, nature will rise up and, claiming her original rights, overturn a corrupt political system.

—Samuel Johnson, 1791

Animals are good to think with.

—Claude Lévi-Strauss, 1962

I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.

—Maya Angelou, 1993

The human mind is an evolutionary product, just like the human body.

—Tetsuro Matsuzawa, 2010

Brains are the only things worth having in this world.

—L. Frank Baum, 1899

The poets did well to conjoin music and medicine, because the office of medicine is but to tune the curious harp of man’s body.

—Francis Bacon, 1605