A true German can’t stand the French, / Yet willingly he drinks their wines.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1832
Archive
Quotes
I am a man: I consider nothing human alien to me.
—Terence, 163 BCI think it makes small difference to the dead if they are buried in the tokens of luxury. All this is an empty glorification left for those who live.
—Euripides, 415 BCKill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a god.
—Jean Rostand, 1939Toil is man’s allotment; toil of brain, or toil of hands, or a grief that’s more than either, the grief and sin of idleness.
—Herman Melville, 1849I think that to get under the surface and really appreciate the beauty of any country, one has to go there poor.
—Grace Moore, 1944The fear of war is worse than war itself.
—Seneca, c. 50Quarreling must lead to disorder, and disorder exhaustion.
—Xunzi, c. 250 BCToday’s friend may be tomorrow’s foe.
—Sophocles, 440 BCThe hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways—I to die, and you to live. Which is better, only the god knows.
—Socrates, 399 BCI will never again command an army in America if we must carry along paid spies. I will banish myself to some foreign country first.
—William Tecumseh Sherman, 1863He who laugheth too much, hath the nature of a fool; he that laugheth not at all, hath the nature of an old cat.
—Thomas Fuller, 1732Thought depends absolutely on the stomach, but in spite of that, those who have the best stomachs are not the best thinkers.
—Voltaire, 1770