I hate the present modes of living and getting a living. Farming and shopkeeping and working at a trade or profession are all odious to me. I should relish getting my living in a simple, primitive fashion.
—Henry David Thoreau, 1855
Archive
Quotes
Television is democracy at its ugliest.
—Paddy Chayefsky, 1976Men are merriest when they are from home.
—William Shakespeare, 1599Nothing worth knowing can be understood with the mind.
—Woody Allen, 1979By nature, men are nearly alike; by practice, they get to be wide apart.
—Confucius, c. 500 BCAlongside all swindlers the state now stands there as swindler-in-chief.
—Jacob Burckhardt, c. 1875The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
—H.L. Mencken, 1921Labor disgraces no man; unfortunately, you occasionally find men who disgrace labor.
—Ulysses S. Grant, 1877Whatever the pace of this technological revolution may be, the direction is clear: the lower rungs of the economic ladder are being lopped off.
—Bayard Rustin, 1965When we define democracy now, it must still be as a thing hoped for but not seen.
—Pearl S. Buck, 1941In meeting again after a separation, acquaintances ask after our outward life, friends after our inner life.
—Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, 1880The twilight is the crack between the worlds.
—Carlos Castaneda, 1968I’ve been bathing in the poem / Of star-infused and milky sea / Devouring the azure greens.
—Arthur Rimbaud, 1871