It seems to me that we all look at nature too much and live with her too little.
—Oscar Wilde, 1897
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Quotes
He who travels by sea is nothing but a worm on a piece of wood, a trifle in the midst of a powerful creation. The waters play about with him at will, and no one but God can help him.
—Muhammad as-Saffar, 1846Imagination is the secret and marrow of civilization. It is the very eye of faith.
—Henry Ward Beecher, 1887To gaze upon a drop of water is to behold the nature of all the waters of the universe.
—Huangbo Xiyun, c. 850The day unravels what the night has woven.
—Walter Benjamin, 1929War is the child of pride, and pride the daughter of riches.
—Jonathan Swift, 1697That which the sober man keeps in his breast, the drunken man lets out at the lips. Astute people, when they want to ascertain a man’s true character, make him drunk.
—Martin Luther, 1569Whenever there is excess, an ax remedies it.
—Sumerian proverbThere are twelve hours in the day, and above fifty in the night.
—Madame de Sévigné, 1671Avoid the talk of men. For talk is mischievous, light, and easily raised, but hard to bear and difficult to be rid of. Talk never wholly dies away when many people voice her: even talk is in some ways divine.
—Hesiod, c. 700 BCOne has to spend so many years in learning how to be happy.
—George Eliot, 1844I have often repented speaking, but never of holding my tongue.
—Xenocrates, c. 350 BCHe alone who owns the youth gains the future.
—Adolf Hitler, 1935