Life isn’t all beer and skittles, but beer and skittles, or something better of the same sort, must form a good part of every Englishman’s education.
—Thomas Hughes, 1857
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Quotes
I drink for the thirst to come.
—François Rabelais, 1535Do not ask me to be kind; just ask me to act as though I were.
—Jules Renard, 1898All civilization has from time to time become a thin crust over a volcano of revolution.
—Havelock Ellis, 1921To think ill of mankind, and not wish ill to them, is perhaps the highest wisdom and virtue.
—William Hazlitt, 1823Were 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, 1849I have yet, I believe, some years in store, for I have a good state of health and a happy mind, and I take care of both by nourishing the first with temperance and the latter with abundance. This, I believe, you will allow to be the true philosophy of life.
—Thomas Paine, 1803Whatever the apparent cause of any riots may be, the real one is always want of happiness.
—Thomas Paine, 1792I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. War is hell.
—William Tecumseh Sherman, 1879I hate the sight of monkeys; they remind me so of poor relations.
—Henry Luttrell, 1820Whatsoever is, is in God.
—Benedict de Spinoza, 1677Keep away from physicians. It is all probing and guessing and pretending with them. They leave it to nature to cure in her own time, but they take the credit. As well as very fat fees.
—Anthony Burgess, 1964Sex and drugs and rock and roll.
—Ian Dury, 1977