In every ill turn of fortune, the most unhappy sort of unfortunate man is the one who has been happy.
—Boethius, c. 520
Archive
Quotes
More and more I like to take a train. I understand why the French prefer it to automobiling—it is so much more sociable, and of course these days so much more of an adventure, and the irregularity of its regularity is fascinating.
—Gertrude Stein, 1943Business is other people’s money.
—Delphine de Girardin, 1852Religion! How it dominates man’s mind, how it humiliates and degrades his soul. God is everything, man is nothing, says religion. But out of that nothing God has created a kingdom so despotic, so tyrannical, so cruel, so terribly exacting that naught but gloom and tears and blood have ruled the world since gods began.
—Emma Goldman, 1910Often the prudent, far from making their destinies, succumb to them; it is destiny which makes them prudent.
—Voltaire, 1764Repetition is the mother of education.
—Jean Paul, 1807Enemies are so stimulating.
—Katharine Hepburn, 1969Memory is more indelible than ink.
—Anita Loos, 1974He may be a patriot for Austria, but the question is whether he is a patriot for me.
—Emperor Francis Joseph, c. 1850A frenzied passion for art is a canker that devours everything else.
—Charles Baudelaire, 1852Democracy cannot be static. Whatever is static is dead.
—Eleanor Roosevelt, 1942Any serious attempt to do anything worthwhile is ritualistic.
—Derek Walcott, 1986If the world were good for nothing else, it is a fine subject for speculation.
—William Hazlitt, 1823