For what do we live but to make sport for our neighbors and laugh at them in our turn?
—Jane Austen, 1813
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Quotes
If a man will observe as he walks the streets, I believe he will find the merriest countenances in mourning coaches.
—Jonathan Swift, 1706As is the face, so is the mind.
—Roman proverbTraveling is like gambling: it is ever connected with winning and losing, and generally where least expected we receive more or less than we hoped for.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1797The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.
—Aristotle, c. 350 BCIf a king loves music, there is little wrong in the land.
—Mencius, c. 330 BCReason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
—George Washington, 1796And, after all, what is a lie? ’Tis but the truth in masquerade.
—Lord Byron, 1822The mind is not, I know, a highway but a temple, and its doors should not be carelessly left open.
—Margaret Fuller, 1844The art of invention grows young with the things invented.
—Francis Bacon, 1605The future, like everything else, is no longer quite what it used to be.
—Paul Valéry, 1931Perish the universe, provided I have my revenge.
—Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac, 1654In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1830