The brain is an unreliable organ, it is monstrously great, monstrously developed. Swollen, like a goiter.
—Aleksandr Blok, c. 1920
Archive
Quotes
Every man takes the limits of his own vision for the limits of the world.
—Arthur Schopenhauer, 1851As bad a dresser as I am, anything beats being judged by my character.
—David Sedaris, 1997The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes “sightseeing.”
—Daniel Boorstin, 1961The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.
—L.P. Hartley, 1953It hurts to watch the fluency of a body acclimated to its shackling.
—Leslie Jamison, 2014I do not mean to call an elephant a vulgar animal, but if you think about him carefully, you will find that his nonvulgarity consists in such gentleness as is possible to elephantine nature—not in his insensitive hide, nor in his clumsy foot, but in the way he will lift his foot if a child lies in his way; and in his sensitive trunk, and still more sensitive mind, and capability of pique on points of honor.
—John Ruskin, 1860If there is a technological advance without a social advance, there is, almost automatically, an increase in human misery.
—Michael Harrington, 1962Life isn’t all beer and skittles, but beer and skittles, or something better of the same sort, must form a good part of every Englishman’s education.
—Thomas Hughes, 1857If you are a dog and your owner suggests that you wear a sweater, suggest that he wear a tail.
—Fran Lebowitz, 1981Drive out nature with a pitchfork, and she will always come back.
—Horace, c. 25 BCA human being must have occupation, if he or she is not to become a nuisance to the world.
—Dorothy L. Sayers, 1947All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.
—Toni Morrison, 1987