Man must be doing something, or fancy that he is doing something, for in him throbs the creative impulse; the mere basker in the sunshine is not a natural, but an abnormal man.
—Henry George, 1879
Archive
Quotes
I do love cricket—it’s so very English.
—Sarah Bernhardt, c. 1908Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It’s what separates us from the animals—except the weasel.
—The Simpsons, 1993Comedy, like sodomy, is an unnatural act.
—Marty Feldman, 1969A man who exposes himself when he is intoxicated has not the art of getting drunk.
—Samuel Johnson, 1779To know the abyss of the darkness and not to fear it, to entrust oneself to it and whatever may arise from it—what greater gift?
—Ursula K. Le Guin, 1975Madness need not be all breakdown. It may also be breakthrough.
—R.D. Laing, 1967All law is of necessity defective in the beginning.
—Han Yu, c. 800Democracy forever teases us with the contrast between its ideals and its realities, between its heroic possibilities and its sorry achievements.
—Agnes Repplier, 1916Vanity of vanities; all is vanity.
—Ecclesiastes, c. 250 BCThe planet keeps to the astronomer’s timetable, but the wind still bloweth almost where it listeth.
—John Henry Poynting, 1899The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much.
—Joseph Conrad, 1899The various modes of religion which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true, by the philosophers equally false, and by the magistrate as equally useful.
—Edward Gibbon, 1776