There is not so contemptible a plant or animal that does not confound the most enlarged understanding.
—John Locke, 1689
Archive
Quotes
Is all our fire of shipwreck wood?
—Robert Browning, 1862Suffering has its limit, but fears are endless.
—Pliny the Younger, c. 108Profit is profit even in Mecca.
—Nigerian proverbLuck is not something you can mention in the presence of self-made men.
—E.B. White, 1944If you wish to avoid foreign collision, you had better abandon the ocean.
—Henry Clay, 1812A man is either free or he is not. There cannot be any apprenticeship for freedom.
—Amiri Baraka, 1962Among famous traitors of history, one might mention the weather.
—Ilka Chase, 1969Alone, alone, all, all alone, / Alone on a wide, wide sea!
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1798An irreligious man is not one who denies the gods of the majority, but one who applies to the gods the opinions of the majority. For what most men say about the gods are not ideas derived from sensation, but false opinions, according to which the greatest evils come to the wicked, and the greatest blessings come to the good from the gods.
—Epicurus, c. 250 BCCalamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1906If I see something sagging, dragging, or bagging, I’m going to go have the stuff tucked or plucked.
—Dolly Parton, 2003And to our age’s drowsy blood / Still shouts the inspiring sea.
—James Russell Lowell, 1848