Archive

Quotes

We die of comfort and by conflict live.

—May Sarton, 1953

I have loved war too well.

—Louis XIV, 1715

I shall be an autocrat: that’s my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that’s his.

—Catherine the Great, c. 1796

Rewards and punishment are the lowest form of education.

—Zhuangzi, c. 286 BC

Revolutions are celebrated when they are no longer dangerous. 

—Pierre Boulez, 1989

Life is the art of being well deceived.

—William Hazlitt, c. 1817

It is a certain sign of a wise government and proceeding, when it can hold men’s hearts by hopes, when it cannot by satisfaction.

—Francis Bacon, 1625

Necessity knows no law except to conquer.

—Publilius Syrus, c. 50 BC

Lord! I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing.

—Jonathan Swift, 1738

Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

—George Washington, 1796

All our enemies are mortal.

—Paul Valéry, 1942

The sea receives us in a proper way only when we are without clothes.

—Pliny the Elder, 77

Some folks want their luck buttered.

—Thomas Hardy, 1886