The ceaseless, senseless demand for original scholarship in a number of fields, where only erudition is now possible, has led either to sheer irrelevancy, the famous knowing of more and more about less and less, or to the development of a pseudo-scholarship which actually destroys its object.
—Hannah Arendt, 1972
Archive
Quotes
What water gives, water takes away.
—Portuguese proverbLord! I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing.
—Jonathan Swift, 1738Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt.
—Herbert Hoover, 1936Suffering has its limit, but fears are endless.
—Pliny the Younger, c. 108In the Middle Ages people were tourists because of their religion, whereas now they are tourists because tourism is their religion.
—Robert Runcie, 1988The fear of war is worse than war itself.
—Seneca, c. 50How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do.
—William James, 1902To be a successful father… there’s one absolute rule: when you have a kid, don’t look at it for the first two years.
—Ernest Hemingway, 1954Jokes are grievances.
—Marshall McLuhan, 1969A wise woman never yields by appointment. It should always be an unforeseen happiness.
—Stendhal, 1822Exchange is no robbery.
—German proverbI have given up considering happiness as relevant.
—Edward Gorey, 1974