Good men must not obey the laws too well.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1844
Archive
Quotes
Every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony.
—William James, 1902I’ve got some shit I’m conservative about and some shit I’m liberal about. Crime—I’m conservative. Prostitution—I’m liberal.
—Chris Rock, 2008Be temperate in wine, in eating, girls, and sloth, or the Gout will seize you.
—Benjamin Franklin, 1734What is death? A scary mask. Take it off—see, it doesn’t bite.
—Epictetus, c. 110Refrigerators and television sets, or even rockets sent to the moon, do not change man into God.
—Czesław Miłosz, 1960There is a demon who puts wings on certain tales and launches them like eagles out into space.
—Alexandre Dumas, 1846Knowledge itself is power.
—Francis Bacon, 1597In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made school boards.
—Mark Twain, 1897Sex: in America, an obsession; in other parts of the world, a fact.
—Marlene Dietrich, 1962Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term art, I should call it “the reproduction of what the senses perceive in nature through the veil of the soul.” The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of “artist.”
—Edgar Allan Poe, 1849A self-made man is one who believes in luck and sends his son to Oxford.
—Christina Stead, 1938Many a man who thinks to found a home discovers that he has merely opened a tavern for his friends.
—Norman Douglas, 1917