It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard for their own interest.
—Adam Smith, 1776
Archive
Quotes
Disease is not of the body but of the place.
—Latin proverbThe diseases of the present have little in common with the diseases of the past save that we die of them.
—Agnes Repplier, 1929Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.
—Reinhold Niebuhr, 1944Someone who knows too much finds it hard not to lie.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1947A multitude of small delights constitute happiness.
—Charles Baudelaire, 1897The man in constant fear is every day condemned.
—Publilius Syrus, c. 50 BCI am an old scholar, better-looking now than when I was young. That’s what sitting on your ass does to your face.
—Leonard Cohen, 1970The law is far, the fist is near.
—Korean proverbOne of the important requirements for learning how to cook is that you also learn how to eat.
—Julia Child, 2001Again, men in general desire the good, and not merely what their fathers had.
—Aristotle, c. 350 BCMan 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. 217Every city has a sex and an age which have nothing to do with demography. Rome is feminine. So is Odessa. London is a teenager, an urchin, and in this hasn’t changed since the time of Dickens. Paris, I believe, is a man in his twenties in love with an older woman.
—John Berger, 1987