If fame is only to come after death, I am in no hurry for it.
—Martial, c. 86Quotes
There is no work of human hands which time does not wear away and reduce to dust.
—Marcus Tullius Cicero, 46 BCIn revolutions men fall and rise. Long before this war is over, much as you hear me praised now, you may hear me cursed and insulted.
—William Tecumseh Sherman, 1864Let him who desires peace prepare for war.
—Vegetius, c. 385Man is a tool-using animal. Nowhere do you find him without tools; without tools he is nothing, with tools he is all.
—Thomas Carlyle, 1836People will not look forward to posterity who never look backward to their ancestors.
—Edmund Burke, 1790Gossip is a sort of smoke that comes from the dirty tobacco pipes of those who diffuse it; it proves nothing but the bad taste of the smoker.
—George Eliot, 1876All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.
—Toni Morrison, 1987I’ve dreamed enough to have a drink.
—François Rabelais, 1546If I played in New York, they’d name a candy bar after me.
—Reggie Jackson, 1976Is all our fire of shipwreck wood?
—Robert Browning, 1862Sick, irritated, and the prey to a thousand discomforts, I go on with my labor like a true workingman, who, with sleeves rolled up, in the sweat of his brow, beats away at his anvil, not caring whether it rains or blows, hails or thunders.
—Gustave Flaubert, 1845I doubt that we have any right to pity the dead for their own sakes.
—Lord Byron, 1817