Uprootedness is by far the most dangerous malady to which human societies are exposed, for it is a self-propagating one.
—Simone Weil, 1943
Archive
Quotes
How sickness enlarges the dimension of a man’s self to himself! He is his own exclusive object.
—Charles Lamb, 1833The things of the night cannot be explained in the day, because they do not then exist.
—Ernest Hemingway, 1929Avoid 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 BCWatch with glittering eyes the whole world around you, because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.
—Roald Dahl, 1990I have loved justice and hated iniquity: therefore I die in exile.
—Gregory VII, c. 1085Religion! How it dominates man’s mind, how it humiliates and degrades his soul. God is everything, man is nothing, says religion. But out of that nothing God has created a kingdom so despotic, so tyrannical, so cruel, so terribly exacting that naught but gloom and tears and blood have ruled the world since gods began.
—Emma Goldman, 1910Divine nature gave the fields; human art built the cities.
—Marcus Terentius Varro, c. 70 BCMy mother protected me from the world and my father threatened me with it.
—Quentin Crisp, 1968There’s plenty of water in the universe without life, but nowhere is there life without water.
—Sylvia Alice Earle, 1995Carnal embrace is the practice of throwing one’s arms around a side of beef.
—Tom Stoppard, 1993One great reason why many children abandon themselves wholly to silly sports and trifle away all their time insipidly is because they have found their curiosity baulked and their inquiries neglected.
—John Locke, 1693If there is a word in the dictionary under any letter from A to Z that I abominate, it is energy.
—Charles Dickens, 1865