Have you ever, looking up, seen a cloud like to a centaur, a leopard, a wolf, or a bull?
—Aristophanes, 423 BC
Archive
Quotes
Despotism achieves great things illegally; democracy doesn’t even take the trouble to achieve small things legally.
—Honoré de Balzac, 1831If we pretend to respect the artist at all, we must allow him his freedom of choice, in the face, in particular cases, of innumerable presumptions that the choice will not fructify. Art derives a considerable part of its beneficial exercise from flying in the face of presumptions.
—Henry James, 1884In most cases men willingly believe what they wish.
—Julius Caesar, 52 BCThe young leading the young is like the blind leading the blind.
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 1747Seaward ho! Hang the treasure! It’s the glory of the sea that has turned my head.
—Robert Louis Stevenson, 1883You furnish the pictures, and I’ll furnish the war.
—William Randolph Hearst, 1898Some folks want their luck buttered.
—Thomas Hardy, 1886He may be a patriot for Austria, but the question is whether he is a patriot for me.
—Emperor Francis Joseph, c. 1850What can you conceive more silly and extravagant than to suppose a man racking his brains and studying night and day how to fly?
—William Law, 1728All pain is one malady with many names.
—Antiphanes, c. 400 BCI'm all for bringing back the birch, but only between consenting adults.
—Gore Vidal, 1973The history of the land has been written very largely in water.
—John Hodgdon Bradley Jr., 1935