Nature is the art of God.
—Thomas Browne, 1635Quotes
True originality consists not in a new manner but in a new vision.
—Edith Wharton, 1924All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.
—Oscar Wilde, 1895I cannot but bless the memory of Julius Caesar, for the great esteem he expressed for fat men and his aversion to lean ones.
—David Hume, 1751Many need no other provocation to enmity than that they find themselves excelled.
—Samuel Johnson, 1751Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.
—William Jennings Bryan, 1899What keeps the democracy alive at all but the hatred of excellence, the desire of the base to see no head higher than their own?
—Mary Renault, 1956When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber.
—Winston Churchill, 1945The winds and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.
—Edward Gibbon, 1788The happy ending is our national belief.
—Mary McCarthy, 1947Corporations have neither bodies to be punished nor souls to be damned.
—Chinese proverbWho sees all beings in his own self, and his own self in all beings, loses all fear.
—The Upanishads, c. 800 BCIn meeting again after a separation, acquaintances ask after our outward life, friends after our inner life.
—Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, 1880