Archive

Quotes

The world is dying of machinery; that is the great disease, that is the plague that will sweep away and destroy civilization; man will have to rise against it sooner or later.

—George Moore, 1888

A man is either free or he is not. There cannot be any apprenticeship for freedom.

—Amiri Baraka, 1962

Good men must not obey the laws too well.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1844

A criminal may improve and become a decent member of society. A foreigner cannot improve. Once a foreigner, always a foreigner. There is no way out for him.

—George Mikes, 1946

Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose. 

—Zora Neale Hurston, 1942

Traveling is like flirting with life. It’s like saying, “I would stay here and love you, but I have to go; this is my station.”

—Lisa St. Aubin de Terán, 1989

True friendship withstands time, distance, and silence.

—Isabel Allende, 2000

Plagues are as certain as death and taxes.

—Richard Krause, 1982

There is nothing sillier than a silly laugh.

—Catullus, c. 60 BC

Animals have these advantages over man: they never hear the clock strike, they die without any idea of death, they have no theologians to instruct them, their last moments are not disturbed by unwelcome and unpleasant ceremonies, their funerals cost them nothing, and no one starts lawsuits over their wills.

—Voltaire, 1769

There is a city in which you find everything you desire—handsome people, pleasures, ornaments of every kind—all that the natural person craves. However, you cannot find a single wise person there.

—Rumi, c. 1250

In a true democracy, everyone can be upper-class and live in Connecticut.

—Lisa Birnbach, 1980

Soldiers in peace are like chimneys in summer.

—William Cecil, Lord Burghley, c. 1555