Archive

Quotes

A sick child is always the mother’s property; her own feelings generally make it so.

—Jane Austen, 1816

Much money makes a country poor, for it sets a dearer price on every thing.

—George Herbert, 1640

It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.

—Dolores Ibárruri, 1936

No human life, not even the life of a hermit, is possible without a world which directly or indirectly testifies to the presence of other human beings.

—Hannah Arendt, 1958

The fear of war is worse than war itself.

—Seneca, c. 50

Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth but not its twin.

—Barbara Kingsolver, 1990

All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.

—Oscar Wilde, 1895

Good fortune turns aside destruction by a great god.

—Instructions of Ankhsheshonqy, c. 100 BC

Ashore it’s wine, women, and song; aboard it’s rum, bum, and concertina.

—British naval saying, c. 1800

Slang is as old as speech and the congregating together of people in cities. It is the result of crowding and excitement and artificial life.

—John Camden Hotten, 1859

I hate the whole race. There is no believing a word they say—your professional poets, I mean—there never existed a more worthless set than Byron and his friends for example.

—Duke of Wellington, c. 1810

How many desolate creatures on the earth have learnt the simple dues of fellowship and social comfort in a hospital.

—Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1857

It is hard when nature does not respect your intentions, and she never does exactly respect them.

—Wendell Berry, 1985