Famous, adj. Conspicuously miserable.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1906
Archive
Quotes
What are men anyway but balloons on legs, a lot of blown-up bladders?
—Gaius Petronius Arbiter, c. 64One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art.
—Oscar Wilde, 1894Youth is the time to go flashing from one end of the world to the other both in mind and body, to try the manners of different nations, to hear the chimes at midnight.
—Robert Louis Stevenson, 1881One of the animals which a generous and sociable man would soonest become is a dog. A dog can have a friend; he has affections and character; he can enjoy equally the field and the fireside; he dreams, he caresses, he propitiates; he offends and is pardoned; he stands by you in adversity; he is a good fellow.
—Leigh Hunt, 1834The law is established from above but becomes custom below.
—Su Zhe, c. 1100What mighty contests rise from trivial things.
—Alexander Pope, 1712Grow your tree of falsehood from a small grain of truth.
—Czeslaw Milosz, 1946There must be quite a few things a hot bath won’t cure, but I don’t know many of them.
—Sylvia Plath, 1963No one’s serious at seventeen.
—Arthur Rimbaud, 1870Revolution can never be forecast; it cannot be foretold; it comes of itself. Revolution is brewing and is bound to flare up.
—Vladimir Lenin, 1918Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us all without words?
—Marcel Marceau, 1958Without virtue, both riches and honor, to me, seem like the passing cloud.
—Confucius, c. 350 BC