If the present be compared with the remote past, it is easily seen that in all cities and in all peoples there are the same desires and the same passions as there always were.
—Niccolò Machiavelli, c. 1513
Archive
Quotes
If you read somebody’s diary, you get what you deserve.
—David Sedaris, 2004We who officially value freedom of speech above life itself seem to have nothing to talk about but the weather.
—Barbara Ehrenreich, 1991It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs.
—Thomas Hardy, 1874If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
—Voltaire, 1764It is not my design to drink or sleep; my design is to make what haste I can to be gone.
—Oliver Cromwell, 1658I came upon no wine, / So wonderful as thirst.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1923The legislator is like the navigator of a ship on the high seas. He can steer the vessel on which he sails, but he cannot alter its construction, raise the wind, or stop the waves from swelling beneath his feet.
—Alexis de Tocqueville, 1835Everyone knows about everybody in Hollywood—who sleeps with whom, who doesn’t sleep, who does it standing on his head or in the dentist’s chair.
—Rock Hudson, 1982When I do a show, the whole show revolves around me, and if I don’t show up, they can just forget it.
—Ethel Merman, c. 1955How gloriously legible are the constellations of the heavens!
—Anthony Trollope, 1859Don’t lose your mind unless you have paid for it.
—Stanisław Jerzy Lec, 1957Best is water.
—Pindar, 476 BC