Every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony.
—William James, 1902
Archive
Quotes
Men are generally more pleased with a widespread than with a great reputation.
—Pliny the Younger, c. 110On the loftiest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own rump.
—Michel de Montaigne, 1580The only places where American medicine can fully live up to its possibilities are the teaching hospitals.
—Bernard De Voto, 1951Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.
What a man does abroad by night requires and implies more deliberate energy than what he is encouraged to do in the sunshine.
—Henry David Thoreau, 1852Conservation is not merely a thing to be enshrined in outdoor museums, but a way of living on land.
—Aldo Leopold, 1933Familiarity breeds contempt—and children.
—Mark Twain, c. 1900We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language.
—Oscar Wilde, 1887Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.
—Oscar Wilde, 1891The brightest light burns the quickest.
—Olive Beatrice Muir, 1900All the world is topsy-turvy, and it has been topsy-turvy ever since the plague.
—Jack London, 1912Inventor, n. A person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers, and springs and believes it civilization.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1911