The bathing was so delightful this morning, and Molly so pressing with me to enjoy myself, that I believe I stayed in rather too long, as since the middle of the day I have felt unreasonably tired. I shall be more careful another time, and shall not bathe tomorrow as I had before intended.
—Jane Austen, 1804
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Quotes
Good fortune is light as a feather, but nobody knows how to hold it up. Misfortune is heavy as the earth, but nobody knows how to stay out of its way.
—Zhuangzi, c. 300 BCWhat is death? A scary mask. Take it off—see, it doesn’t bite.
—Epictetus, c. 110“I think, therefore I am” is the statement of an intellectual who underrates toothaches.
—Milan Kundera, 1990I am a living symbol of the white man’s fear.
—Winnie Mandela, 1985Sex and drugs and rock and roll.
—Ian Dury, 1977Time, when it is left to itself and no definite demands are made on it, cannot be trusted to move at any recognized pace. Usually it loiters, but just when one has come to count upon its slowness, it may suddenly break into a wild irrational gallop.
—Edith Wharton, 1905The civilized man has built a coach but has lost the use of his feet.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1841The character which results from wealth is that of a prosperous fool.
—Aristotle, c. 322 BCThere is something stirring in the way civilization gapes like a savage at the achievements of nature.
—Karl Kraus, 1909The breaking of a wave cannot explain the whole sea.
—Vladimir Nabokov, 1941Nature contains no one constant form.
—Paul-Henri Dietrich d’Holbach, 1770There is a city in which you find everything you desire—handsome people, pleasures, ornaments of every kind—all that the natural person craves. However, you cannot find a single wise person there.
—Rumi, c. 1250