Archive

Quotes

Do you suppose that will change the sense of the morals, the fact that we can’t use morals as a means of judging the city because we couldn’t stand it? And that we’re changing our whole moral system to suit the fact that we’re living in a ridiculous way?

—Philip Johnson, 1965

A false report rides post.

—English proverb

Secrets define us, they mark us, they set us apart from all the others. The secrets which we preserve provide a key to who we are, deep down.

—Nuruddin Farah, 1998

There is much difference between imitating a good man, and counterfeiting him.

—Benjamin Franklin, 1738

I have been a stranger here in my own land all my life.

—Sophocles, c. 441 BC

Pushing someone toward liberty does not set her free; taking the chains off a prisoner does not give him freedom.

—Ken Bugul, 1982

I used to think that everyone was just being funny. But now I don’t know. I mean, how can you tell?

—Andy Warhol, 1970

One has to spend so many years in learning how to be happy.

—George Eliot, 1844

Think where man’s glory most begins and ends, / And say my glory was I had such friends.

—W.B. Yeats, 1937

Those who know the joys and miseries of celebrities when they have passed the age of forty know how to defend themselves.

—Sarah Bernhardt, 1904

’Tis a portentous sign / When a man sweats and at the same time shivers.

—Plautus, c. 180 BC

Society as a whole must be converted into a gigantic school.

—Che Guevara, 1965

As to the sea itself, love it you cannot. Why should you? I will never believe again the sea was ever loved by anyone whose life was married to it. It is the creation of omnipotence, which is not of humankind and understandable, and so the springs of its behavior are hidden.

—H.M. Tomlinson, 1912