Many, many steeples would have to be stacked one on top of another to reach from the bottom to the surface of the sea. It is down there that the sea folk live.
—Hans Christian Andersen, 1837
Archive
Quotes
God is making commerce his missionary.
—Joseph Cook, c. 1877Only the little people pay taxes.
—Leona Helmsley, 1989We are able to find everything in our memory, which is like a dispensary or chemical laboratory in which chance steers our hand sometimes to a soothing drug and sometimes to a dangerous poison.
—Marcel Proust, c. 1922Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.
It is the little causes, long continued, which are considered as bringing about the greatest changes of the earth.
—James Hutton, 1795We must consider that we shall be a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us, so that if we deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword through the world.
—John Winthrop, 1630Spring now comes unheralded by the return of the birds, and the early mornings are strangely silent where once they were filled with the beauty of birdsong.
—Rachel Carson, 1962What reason weaves, by passion is undone.
—Alexander Pope, 1972A criminal may improve and become a decent member of society. A foreigner cannot improve. Once a foreigner, always a foreigner. There is no way out for him.
—George Mikes, 1946These useless men ought to be cut up and served at a banquet. I really believe that athletes have less intelligence than swine.
—Dio Chrysostom, c. 95Knowledge itself is power.
—Francis Bacon, 1597From hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee.
—Herman Melville, 1851