Archive

Quotes

Hoping for new friendship from old enemies is / Like expecting to find a rose in a furnace.

—Muhammad Baqir Najm-i Sani, 1612

Machines do not run in order to enable men to live, but we resign ourselves to feeding men in order that they may serve the machines.

—Simone Weil, 1934

Lord, I do not ask that thou shouldst give me wealth; only show me where it is, and I will attend to the rest.

—Kate Douglas Wiggin, 1898

Nowadays three witty turns of phrase and a lie make a writer.

—G.C. Lichtenberg, c. 1780

Better a thousand enemies outside the house than one inside.

—Arabic proverb

Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.

—Ecclesiastes, c. 250 BC

My interest is in the future, because I am going to spend the rest of my life there.

—Charles F. Kettering, 1946

An ape will be an ape, though clad in purple.

—Erasmus, 1511

Spit not in the well; you may have to drink its water.

—French proverb

For what do we live but to make sport for our neighbors and laugh at them in our turn?

—Jane Austen, 1813

Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It’s what separates us from the animals—except the weasel.

—The Simpsons, 1993

I looked and there was a pale green horse! Its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed with him.

—Book of Revelations, c. 90

The more religious a country is, the more crimes are committed in it.

—Napoleon Bonaparte, 1817