I wants to make your flesh creep.
—Charles Dickens, 1837
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Quotes
And to our age’s drowsy blood / Still shouts the inspiring sea.
—James Russell Lowell, 1848If the heavens were all parchment, and the trees of the forest all pens, and every human being were a scribe, it would still be impossible to record all that I have learned from my teachers.
—Jochanan ben Zakkai, c. 75We often give our enemies the means for our own destruction.
—Aesop, c. 600 BCFear has a smell, as love does.
—Margaret Atwood, 1972To know intense joy without a strong bodily frame, one must have an enthusiastic soul.
—George Eliot, 1872He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.
—Francis Bacon, 1625Thou art not to learn the humors and tricks of that old bald cheater, time.
—Ben Jonson, 1601Being offended is the natural consequence of leaving one’s home.
—Fran Lebowitz, 1981“I think, therefore I am” is the statement of an intellectual who underrates toothaches.
—Milan Kundera, 1990Go to the pine if you want to learn about the pine, or to the bamboo if you want to learn about the bamboo.
—Matsuo Basho, c. 1685He who treats another human being as divine thereby assigns to himself the relative status of a child or an animal.
—E. R. Dodds, 1951Good fortune is light as a feather, but nobody knows how to hold it up. Misfortune is heavy as the earth, but nobody knows how to stay out of its way.
—Zhuangzi, c. 300 BC