Any serious attempt to do anything worthwhile is ritualistic.
—Derek Walcott, 1986
Archive
Quotes
Anyone who in discussion quotes authority uses his memory rather than his intellect.
—Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1500Seafarers go to sleep in the evening not knowing whether they will find themselves at the bottom of the sea the next morning.
—Jean de Joinville, c. 1305Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.
—John Wilkes Booth, 1865Great inventors and discoverers seem to have made their discoveries and inventions, as it were, by the way, in the course of their everyday life.
—Elizabeth Charles, 1862The envious die not once, but as often as the envied win applause.
—Baltasar Gracián, 1647Is all our fire of shipwreck wood?
—Robert Browning, 1862The country only has charms for those not obliged to stay there.
—Édouard Manet, c. 1860I used to think that everyone was just being funny. But now I don’t know. I mean, how can you tell?
—Andy Warhol, 1970I quit life as from an inn, not as from a home.
—Marcus Tullius Cicero, 44 BCThe money we have is the means to liberty; that which we pursue is the means to slavery.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau, c. 1770The more men are massed together, the more corrupt they become. Disease and vice are the sure results of overcrowded cities.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1762Football causeth fighting, brawling, contention, quarrel picking, murder, homicide and great effusion of bloode, as daily experience teacheth.
—Philip Stubbes, 1583