Methinks the human method of expression by sound of tongue is very elementary and ought to be substituted for some ingenious invention which should be able to give vent to at least six coherent sentences at once.
—Virginia Woolf, 1899
Archive
Quotes
We who officially value freedom of speech above life itself seem to have nothing to talk about but the weather.
—Barbara Ehrenreich, 1991Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in the nineteenth century that one cannot explain away.
—Oscar Wilde, 1891It is shameful and inhuman to treat men like chattels to make money by, or to regard them merely as so much muscle or physical power.
—Pope Leo XIII, 1891Suffering has its limit, but fears are endless.
—Pliny the Younger, c. 108I ride rough waters and shall sink with no one to save me.
—Virginia Woolf, 1931My father! The sun is my father, and the earth is my mother, and on her bosom I will recline.
—Tecumseh, 1810I was born without knowing why, I have lived without knowing why, and I am dying without either knowing why or how.
—Pierre Gassendi, 1655You should never have your best trousers on when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.
—Henrik Ibsen, 1882Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.
—Reinhold Niebuhr, 1944We must not always talk in the marketplace of what happens to us in the forest.
—Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1850A god cannot procure death for himself, even if he wished it, which, so numerous are the evils of life, has been granted to man as our chief good.
—Pliny the Elder, c. 77Friendship! Sir, there can be no such thing without an equality.
—George Farquhar, 1702