I began to realize how simple life could be if one had a regular routine to follow with fixed hours, a fixed salary, and very little original thinking to do.
—Roald Dahl, 1984
Archive
Quotes
Misfortune, n. The kind of fortune that never misses.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1906The happiness of society is the end of government.
—John Adams, 1776If you read somebody’s diary, you get what you deserve.
—David Sedaris, 2004I won’t be happy till I’m as famous as God.
—Madonna, c. 1985A real leader is somebody who can help us overcome the limitations of our own individual laziness and selfishness and weakness and fear and get us to do better, harder things than we can get ourselves to do on our own.
—David Foster Wallace, 2000All attempts to adapt our ethical code to our situation in the technological age have failed.
—Max Born, 1968In large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad.
—Friedrich Nietzsche, 1878Few sons are equal to their fathers; most fall short, all too few surpass them.
—Homer, c. 750 BCDon’t talk to me about naval tradition. It’s nothing but rum, sodomy, and the lash.
—Winston Churchill, 1939Time’s violence rends the soul; by the rent eternity enters.
—Simone Weil, 1947A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself.
—Arthur Miller, 1961Shame on the soul, to falter on the road of life while the body still perseveres.
—Marcus Aurelius, c. 170