Archive

Quotes

The criminal is the creative artist; the detective only the critic.

—G.K. Chesterton, 1911

Travelers, poets, and liars are three words all of one significance.

—Richard Brathwaite, 1631

Until you’ve lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was or what freedom really is.

—Margaret Mitchell, 1936

When the missionaries first came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said, “Let us pray.” We closed our eyes. When we opened them, we had the Bible and they had the land.

—Desmond Tutu, 1984

The doctor should be opaque to his patients and, like a mirror, should show them nothing but what is shown to him.

—Sigmund Freud, 1912

At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.

—W. Somerset Maugham, 1896

Our crime against criminals is that we treat them as villains.

—Friedrich Nietzsche, 1898

That which is evil is soon learned. 

—John Ray, 1670

Fashion, n. A despot whom the wise ridicule and obey.

—Ambrose Bierce, 1911

Plagues are as certain as death and taxes.

—Richard Krause, 1982

Seamen are the nearest to death and the furthest from God.

—Thomas Fuller, 1732

Enemies to me are the sauce piquant to my dish of life.

—Elsa Maxwell, 1955

One’s friends are divided into two classes, those one knows because one must and those one knows because one mustn’t.

—Sybil Taylor, 1922