Extraordinary how potent cheap music is.
—Noël Coward, 1930
Archive
Quotes
What can you conceive more silly and extravagant than to suppose a man racking his brains and studying night and day how to fly?
—William Law, 1728The brutalities of progress are called revolutions. When they are over we realize this: that the human has been roughly handled, but that it has advanced.
—Victor Hugo, 1862Everything is a miracle. It is a miracle that one does not dissolve in one’s bath like a lump of sugar.
—Pablo Picasso, 1929He makes his cook his merit, and the world visits his dinners and not him.
—Molière, 1666An American will build a house in which to pass his old age and sell it before the roof is on.
—Alexis de Tocqueville, 1840Unexemplary words and unfounded doctrines are avoided by the noble person. Why utter them?
—Dong Zhongshu, c. 120 BCI said of laughter, “It is mad,” and of pleasure, “What use is it?”
—Book of Ecclesiastes, 225 BCFortune brings in some boats that are not steered.
—William Shakespeare, c. 1610He that would eat the nut must crack the shell.
—Plautus, c. 200 BCYou are dust, and to dust you shall return.
—Book of Genesis, c. 800 BCThe young always have the same problem—how to rebel and conform at the same time. They have now solved this by defying their elders and copying one another.
—Quentin Crisp, 1968One 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, 1693