The seeds of civilization are in every culture, but it is city life that brings them to fruition.
—Susanne K. Langer, 1962
Archive
Quotes
If I had been born a man, I would have conquered Europe. As I was born a woman, I exhausted my energy in tirades against fate and in eccentricities.
—Marie Bashkirtseff, 1884Superstitions are habits rather than beliefs.
—Marlene Dietrich, 1962Spit not in the well; you may have to drink its water.
—French proverbI am sure of this: that if everybody was to drink their bottle a day, there would not be half the disorders in the world there are now.
—Jane Austen, c. 1798We cherish our friends not for their ability to amuse us but for ours to amuse them.
—Evelyn Waugh, 1963Better a thousand enemies outside the house than one inside.
—Arabic proverbThree may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.
—Benjamin Franklin, 1735Sport is the bloom and glow of a perfect health.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1838All moanday, tearsday, wailsday, thumpsday, frightday, shatterday till the fear of the Law.
—James Joyce, 1939Who draws his sword against his prince must throw away the scabbard.
—James Howell, 1659A bad reputation is easy to come by, painful to bear, and difficult to clear.
—Hesiod, c. 700 BCIn the society of men, the truth resides now less in what things are than in what they are not. Our social realities are so ugly if seen in the light of exiled truth, and beauty is almost no longer possible if it is not a lie.
—R.D. Laing, 1967