For, say they, when cruising in an empty ship, if you can get nothing better out of the world, get a good dinner out of it, at least.
—Herman Melville, 1851
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Quotes
I tell you, there is such a thing as creative hate!
—Willa Cather, 1915I find the pain of a little censure, even when it is unfounded, is more acute than the pleasure of much praise.
—Thomas Jefferson, 1789We are to go to law never to revenge, but only to repair.
—Samuel Pepys, 1661In order that people may be happy in their work, these three things are needed: they must be fit for it; they must not do too much of it; and they must have a sense of success in it.
—John Ruskin, 1850A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.
—George Bernard Shaw, 1944Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1921Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
—George Washington, 1796A hick town is one where there is no place to go where you shouldn’t go.
—Alexander Woollcott, c. 1935Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.
—G.K. Chesterton, 1928A brilliant boxing match, quicksilver in its motions, transpiring far more rapidly than the mind can absorb, can have the power that Emily Dickinson attributed to great poetry: you know it’s great when it takes the top of your head off.
—Joyce Carol Oates, 1987In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made school boards.
—Mark Twain, 1897The art of invention grows young with the things invented.
—Francis Bacon, 1605