Love is giving something you haven’t got to someone who doesn’t exist.
—Jacques Lacan
Archive
Quotes
They say, “We only have the life of this world. We die and we live, and nothing destroys us but time.” Yet, not true knowledge have they of this—only belief.
—The Qur’an, c. 620All moanday, tearsday, wailsday, thumpsday, frightday, shatterday till the fear of the Law.
—James Joyce, 1939The history of the world is the record of the weakness, frailty, and death of public opinion.
—Samuel Butler, c. 1902Pushing someone toward liberty does not set her free; taking the chains off a prisoner does not give him freedom.
—Ken Bugul, 1982One is never as unhappy as one thinks, nor as happy as one hopes.
—La Rochefoucauld, 1664Few sons are equal to their fathers; most fall short, all too few surpass them.
—Homer, c. 750 BCEight hours for work, eight hours for sleep, eight hours for what we will.
—Slogan of the National Labor Union of the United States, 1866Fire destroys that which feeds it.
—Simone Weil, c. 1940There is no blindness more insidious, more fatal, than this race for profit.
—Helen Keller, 1928The physician should look upon the patient as a besieged city and try to rescue him with every means that art and science place at his command.
—Alexander of Tralles, c. 600The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws.
—Tacitus, c. 117Bereavement is a darkness impenetrable to the imagination of the unbereaved.
—Iris Murdoch, 1974