What one man can invent another can discover.
—Arthur Conan Doyle, 1905
Archive
Quotes
I take it as a prime cause of the present confusion of society that it is too sickly and too doubtful to use pleasure frankly as a test of value.
—Rebecca West, 1939One of the secrets of a happy life is continuous small treats.
—Iris Murdoch, 1978Africa has her mysteries, and even a wise man cannot understand them. But a wise man respects them.
—Miriam Makeba, 1988War is fear cloaked in courage.
—William Westmoreland, 1966I look for the end of the future, but it never ceases to arrive.
—Zhuangzi, c. 325 BCNo punishment has ever possessed enough power of deterrence to prevent the commission of crimes.
—Hannah Arendt, 1963However harmless a thing is, if the law forbids it, most people will think it wrong.
—W. Somerset Maugham, 1896The subconscious is ceaselessly murmuring, and it is by listening to these murmurs that one hears the truth.
—Gaston Bachelard, 1960Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing—the rest is mere sheep herding.
—Ezra Pound, 1934Years are nothing to me—they should be nothing to you. Who asked you to count them or to consider them? In the world of wild nature, time is measured by seasons only—the bird does not know how old it is—the rose tree does not count its birthdays!
—Marie Corelli, 1911The bathing was so delightful this morning, and Molly so pressing with me to enjoy myself, that I believe I stayed in rather too long, as since the middle of the day I have felt unreasonably tired. I shall be more careful another time, and shall not bathe tomorrow as I had before intended.
—Jane Austen, 1804They are trying to make me into a fixed star. I am an irregular planet.
—Martin Luther, c. 1530