We must select the illusion which appeals to our temperament and embrace it with passion if we want to be happy.
—Cyril Connolly, 1944
Archive
Quotes
No lyric poems live long or please many people which are written by drinkers of water.
—Horace, 20 BCEvery gift has a personality—that of its giver.
—Nuruddin Farah, 1992The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honor or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1774Do not fear the clatter of wheels, the bumps and slops in corridors. It is only turbulence.
—Romalyn Ante, 2020Uprootedness is by far the most dangerous malady to which human societies are exposed, for it is a self-propagating one.
—Simone Weil, 1943Very shy people don’t even want to take up the space that their body actually takes up.
—Andy Warhol, 1975Children and fools cannot lie.
—John Heywood, 1546Possessions, outward success, publicity, luxury—to me these have always been contemptible. I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best both for the body and the mind.
—Albert Einstein, 1931Patriotism is an ephemeral motive that scarcely ever outlasts the particular threat to society that aroused it.
—Denis Diderot, 1774We wish away whole years, and travel through time as through a country filled with many wild and empty wastes, which we would fain hurry over, that we may arrive at those several little settlements or imaginary points of rest which are dispersed up and down in it.
—Joseph Addison, 1711I doubt that we have any right to pity the dead for their own sakes.
—Lord Byron, 1817“Abroad,” that large home of ruined reputations.
—George Eliot, 1866