The purest joy is to live without disguise, unconstrained by the ties of a grave reputation.
—Al-Hariri, c. 1108
Archive
Quotes
Good men must not obey the laws too well.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1844No lyric poems live long or please many people which are written by drinkers of water.
—Horace, 20 BCIf God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
—Voltaire, 1764Freedom is not something that anybody can be given; freedom is something people take, and people are as free as they want to be.
—James Baldwin, 1961I am leaving the town to the invaders: increasingly numerous, mediocre, dirty, badly behaved, shameless tourists.
—Brigitte Bardot, 1989The sick man is the parasite of society.
—Friedrich Nietzsche, 1889Perish the universe, provided I have my revenge.
—Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac, 1654Some memories are like lucky charms, talismans, one shouldn’t tell about them or they’ll lose their power.
—Iris Murdoch, 1985An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry.
—George Eliot, 1866We are so constituted that we believe the most incredible things, and once they are engraved upon the memory, woe to him who would endeavor to erase them.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1774I proclaim night more truthful than the day.
—Léopold Sédar Senghor, 1956Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
—Arthur C. Clarke, 1973