Archive

Quotes

Do that which consists in taking no action, and order will prevail.

—Laozi, c. 500 BC

Toil 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, 1849

A tree’s a tree. How many more do you need to look at?

—Ronald Reagan, 1965

Rivalry adds so much to the charms of one’s conquests.

—Louisa May Alcott, 1866

There’s hope a great man’s memory may outlive his life half a year.

—William Shakespeare, c. 1600

I shall embrace my rival—until I suffocate him.

—Jean Racine, 1669

I am dying with the help of too many physicians.

—Alexander the Great, c. 323 BC

Democracy, like the human organism, carries within it the seed of its own destruction.

—Veronica Wedgwood, 1946

Darkness endows the small and ordinary ones among mankind with poetical power.

—Thomas Hardy, 1874

It is a greater advantage to be honestly educated than honorably born.

—Erasmus, 1518

As usual, what we call “progress” is the exchange of one nuisance for another nuisance.

—Havelock Ellis, 1914

For sooner will men hold fire in their mouths than keep a secret.

—Petronius, c. 60

Hygienic law, like martial law, supersedes rights in crises.

—Samuel Hopkins Adams, 1913