Gossip isn’t scandal and it’s not merely malicious. It’s chatter about the human race by lovers of the same.
—Phyllis McGinley, 1957
Archive
Quotes
Man is the one name belonging to every nation upon earth: there is one soul and many tongues, one spirit and various sounds; every country has its own speech, but the subjects of speech are common to all.
—Tertullian, c. 217If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
—Mark Twain, 1894Men have written in the most convincing manner to prove that death is no evil, and this opinion has been confirmed on a thousand celebrated occasions by the weakest of men as well as by heroes. Even so I doubt whether any sensible person has ever believed it, and the trouble men take to convince others as well as themselves that they do shows clearly that it is no easy undertaking.
—La Rochefoucauld, 1665Nothing from nothing ever yet was born.
—Lucretius, c. 58 BCDo not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.
—Hebrews, c. 60Nature never breaks her own laws.
—Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1500Despotism subjects a nation to one tyrant, democracy to many.
—Marguerite Gardiner, 1839Whatsoever is, is in God.
—Benedict de Spinoza, 1677Even members of the nobility, let alone persons of no consequence, would do well not to have children.
—Yoshida Kenko, c. 1330There is nothing worse for mortals than a wandering life.
—Homer, c. 750 BCIt is far, far better and much safer to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled seas of thought.
—John Kenneth Galbraith, 1958You are dust, and to dust you shall return.
—Book of Genesis, c. 800 BC