It is impossible to translate the poets. Can you translate music?
—Voltaire, c. 1732
Archive
Quotes
Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.
—Albert Camus, 1951Art lives from constraints and dies from freedom.
—Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1480War to the castles; peace to the cottages.
—Nicolas Chamfort, 1790I said of laughter, “It is mad,” and of pleasure, “What use is it?”
—Book of Ecclesiastes, 225 BCHe who would have clear water should go to the fountainhead.
—Italian proverbHe that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.
—Francis Bacon, 1625We never are definitely right; we can only be sure we are wrong.
—Richard P. Feynman, 1965I am sure of this: that if everybody was to drink their bottle a day, there would not be half the disorders in the world there are now.
—Jane Austen, c. 1798According to the law of custom, and perhaps of reason, foreign travel completes the education of an English gentleman.
—Edward Gibbon, c. 1794In most cases men willingly believe what they wish.
—Julius Caesar, 52 BCMen have an extraordinarily erroneous opinion of their position in nature; and the error is ineradicable.
—W. Somerset Maugham, 1896In the name of Hippocrates doctors have invented the most exquisite form of torture ever known to man: survival.
—Luis Buñuel, 1983