There is nothing worse for mortals than a wandering life.
—Homer, c. 750 BC
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Quotes
Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made—through disobedience and through rebellion.
—Oscar Wilde, 1891Methinks the human method of expression by sound of tongue is very elementary and ought to be substituted for some ingenious invention which should be able to give vent to at least six coherent sentences at once.
—Virginia Woolf, 1899Many, 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, 1837Of troubles none is greater than to be robbed of one’s native land.
—Euripides, 431 BCWhat sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul.
—Joseph Addison, 1711Law makes long spokes of the short stakes of men.
—William Empson, 1928Any serious attempt to do anything worthwhile is ritualistic.
—Derek Walcott, 1986People will not look forward to posterity who never look backward to their ancestors.
—Edmund Burke, 1790Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.
—William Morris, 1882You shall judge of a man by his foes as well as by his friends.
—Joseph Conrad, 1900No free man shall be taken or imprisoned or dispossessed or outlawed or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him, nor will we send against him except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.
—Magna Carta, 1215The successful revolutionary is a statesman, the unsuccessful one a criminal.
—Erich Fromm, 1941