Archive

Quotes

Men worry over the great number of diseases, while doctors worry over the scarcity of effective remedies.

—Bian Qiao, c. 500 BC

The Romans would never have found time to conquer the world if they had been obliged first to learn Latin. 

—Heinrich Heine, 1827

Honesty, for me, is usually the worst policy imaginable.

—Patricia Highsmith, 1960

When they shout “Long live progress,” always ask, “Progress of what?”

—Stanisław Jerzy Lec, 1957

There was a great deal of drinking among us but little drunkenness. We all seemed to feel that Prohibition was a personal affront and that we had a moral duty to undermine it.

—Elizabeth Anderson, 1969

If fame is only to come after death, I am in no hurry for it.

—Martial, c. 86

Brains are the only things worth having in this world.

—L. Frank Baum, 1899

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.

—Upton Sinclair, 1935

Friendship! Sir, there can be no such thing without an equality.

—George Farquhar, 1702

He knows the water best who has waded through it.

—Danish proverb

Our nature lies in movement; complete calm is death.

—Blaise Pascal, c. 1640

A merchant may, perhaps, be a man of an enlarged mind, but there is nothing in trade connected with an enlarged mind.

—Samuel Johnson, 1773

Many, many steeples would have to be stacked one on top of another to reach from the bottom to the surface of the sea. It is down there that the sea folk live.

—Hans Christian Andersen, 1837