There lurks in every human heart a desire of distinction which inclines every man first to hope and then to believe that nature has given him something peculiar to himself.
—Samuel Johnson, 1763
Archive
Quotes
The true art of memory is the art of attention.
—Samuel Johnson, 1759Most men employ the first years of their life in making the last miserable.
—Jean de La Bruyère, 1688All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.
—Toni Morrison, 1987Seafarers go to sleep in the evening not knowing whether they will find themselves at the bottom of the sea the next morning.
—Jean de Joinville, c. 1305I think that to get under the surface and really appreciate the beauty of any country, one has to go there poor.
—Grace Moore, 1944The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
—Thomas Jefferson, 1787People commonly travel the world over to see rivers and mountains, new stars, garish birds, freak fish, grotesque breeds of human; they fall into an animal stupor that gapes at existence, and they think they have seen something.
—Søren Kierkegaard, 1843The sea hath fish for every man.
—William Camden, 1605In every man is a wild beast; most of them don’t know how to hold it back, and the majority give it full rein when they are not restrained by terror of law.
—Frederick the Great, 1759How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do.
—William James, 1902There are people whom one loves immediately and forever. Even to know they are alive in the world with one is quite enough.
—Nancy Spain, 1956Those who travel heedlessly from place to place, observing only their distance from each other and attending only to their accommodation at the inn at night, set out fools, and will certainly return so.
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 1747