The older one grows, the more one likes indecency.
—Virginia Woolf, 1921
Archive
Quotes
When a traveler returneth home, let him not leave the countries where he hath traveled altogether behind him.
—Francis Bacon, 1625The breaking of a wave cannot explain the whole sea.
—Vladimir Nabokov, 1941He knows the water best who has waded through it.
—Danish proverbFriendship’s a noble name, ’tis love refined.
—Susanna Centlivre, 1703What a glut of books! Who can read them? As already, we shall have a vast chaos and confusion of books; we are oppressed with them, our eyes ache with reading, our fingers with turning.
—Robert Burton, 1621Luck, in the great game of war, is undoubtedly lord of all.
—Arthur Griffiths, 1899The best physician is he who can distinguish the possible from the impossible.
—Herophilus, c. 290 BCAnd, after all, what is a lie? ’Tis but the truth in masquerade.
—Lord Byron, 1822I never know quite when I’m not writing. Sometimes my wife comes up to me at a party and says, Dammit, Thurber, stop writing. She usually catches me in the middle of a paragraph. Or my daughter will look up from the dinner table and ask, Is he sick? No, my wife says, he’s writing something.
—James Thurber, 1955Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing—the rest is mere sheep herding.
—Ezra Pound, 1934Never make a defense or apology before you be accused.
—Charles I, 1636He that serves God for money will serve the Devil for better wages.
—Roger L’Estrange, 1692