Archive

Quotes

The noblest kind of retribution is not to become like your enemy.

—Marcus Aurelius, c. 175

Man is the one name belonging to every nation upon earth: there is one soul and many tongues, one spirit and various sounds; every country has its own speech, but the subjects of speech are common to all.

—Tertullian, c. 217

Business is other people’s money.

—Delphine de Girardin, 1852

Water its living strength first shows, / When obstacles its course oppose.

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1815

Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us all without words?

—Marcel Marceau, 1958

Can you take your country with you on the soles of your shoes?

—Georg Büchner, 1835

I have seen the science I worshipped, and the aircraft I loved, destroying the civilization I expected them to serve.

—Charles Lindbergh, 1948

There is no greater disaster than not to know contentment.

—Laozi, c. 550 BC

Society as a whole must be converted into a gigantic school.

—Che Guevara, 1965

The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.

—Dean Acheson, 1970

The features of our face are hardly more than gestures which force of habit has made permanent.

—Marcel Proust, 1919

The pleasure we hold in esteem for the course of our lives ought to have a greater share of our time dedicated to it; we should refuse no occasion nor omit any opportunity of drinking, and always have it in our minds.

—Michel de Montaigne, 1580

One’s friends are divided into two classes, those one knows because one must and those one knows because one mustn’t.

—Sybil Taylor, 1922