Understanding is a very dull occupation.
—Gertrude Stein, 1937
Archive
Quotes
In all the ancient states and empires, those who had the shipping, had the wealth.
—William Petty, 1690So long as one believes in God, one has the right to do the Good in order to be moral.
—Jean-Paul Sartre, c. 1950One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
—André Gide, 1926I began to realize how simple life could be if one had a regular routine to follow with fixed hours, a fixed salary, and very little original thinking to do.
—Roald Dahl, 1984The play is the tragedy “Man,” And its hero the conqueror worm.
—Edgar Allan Poe, 1843The spirit of revolution, the spirit of insurrection, is a spirit radically opposed to liberty.
—François Guizot, 1830The earth is our existence, and our body is attached to the earth.
—Daulat Qazi, c. 1650What is life but organized energy?
—Arthur C. Clarke, 1958Toil is man’s allotment; toil of brain, or toil of hands, or a grief that’s more than either, the grief and sin of idleness.
—Herman Melville, 1849I have never felt salvation in nature. I love cities above all.
—Michelangelo Antonioni, 1967I’m doomed to die, right? Why should I care if I go to Hades either with gout in my leg or a runner’s grace? Plenty of people will carry me there.
—Nicharchus, c. 90The Romans would never have found time to conquer the world if they had been obliged first to learn Latin.
—Heinrich Heine, 1827