Archive

Quotes

Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.

—B.F. Skinner, 1964

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.

—Aleister Crowley, 1904

We have to ask ourselves whether medicine is to remain a humanitarian and respected profession or a new but depersonalized science in the service of prolonging life rather than diminishing human suffering.

—Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, 1969

Whoever gulps down wine as a horse gulps down water is called a Scythian.

—Athenaeus, c. 230

A fair complexion is unbecoming to a sailor: he ought to be swarthy from the waters of the sea and the rays of the sun.

—Ovid, c. 1 BC

Had Cleopatra’s nose been shorter, the whole face of the world would have changed.

—Blaise Pascal, 1658

It costs a lot to make a person look this cheap. 

—Dolly Parton, 1994

Luck, in the great game of war, is undoubtedly lord of all.

—Arthur Griffiths, 1899

Quarrels would not last long if the fault was only on one side.

—La Rochefoucauld, 1665

Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.

—William Blake, c. 1803

The first thing that a new migrant sends to his family back home isn’t money; it’s a story.

—Suketu Mehta, 2019

Money is a language for translating the work of the farmer into the work of the barber, doctor, engineer, or plumber.

—Marshall McLuhan, 1964

What will not attract a man’s stare at sea?—a gull, a turtle, a flying fish!

—Richard Burton, 1883