Newspapers always excite curiosity. No one ever lays one down without a feeling of disappointment.
—Charles Lamb, 1833
Archive
Quotes
Every tooth in a man’s head is more valuable than a diamond.
—Miguel de Cervantes, 1605Men have an extraordinarily erroneous opinion of their position in nature; and the error is ineradicable.
—W. Somerset Maugham, 1896Every city has a sex and an age which have nothing to do with demography. Rome is feminine. So is Odessa. London is a teenager, an urchin, and in this hasn’t changed since the time of Dickens. Paris, I believe, is a man in his twenties in love with an older woman.
—John Berger, 1987Fear is the foundation of most governments.
—John Adams, 1776Let us have peace, but let us have liberty, law, and justice first.
—Frederick Douglass, 1878Anyone who in discussion quotes authority uses his memory rather than his intellect.
—Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1500The happiness of society is the end of government.
—John Adams, 1776I live by good soup, and not on fine language.
—Molière, 1672When I do a show, the whole show revolves around me, and if I don’t show up, they can just forget it.
—Ethel Merman, c. 1955I take it as a prime cause of the present confusion of society that it is too sickly and too doubtful to use pleasure frankly as a test of value.
—Rebecca West, 1939I do not amuse myself by thinking of dead people.
—Napoleon Bonaparte, 1807The more corrupt the state, the more numerous its laws.
—Tacitus, c. 110