I began to realize how simple life could be if one had a regular routine to follow with fixed hours, a fixed salary, and very little original thinking to do.
—Roald Dahl, 1984
Archive
Quotes
To escape its wretched lot, the populace has three ways, two imaginary and one real. The first two are the rum shop and the church; the third is the social revolution.
—Mikhail Bakunin, 1871What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham.
—Frederick Douglass, 1855Governments are not overthrown by the poor, who have no power, but by the rich—when they are insulted by their inferiors and cannot obtain justice.
—Dionysius of Halicarnassus, c. 20 BCPictures made in childhood are painted in bright hues.
—Kate Douglas Wiggin, 1886Money, not morality, is the principle of commercial nations.
—Thomas JeffersonIf I see something sagging, dragging, or bagging, I’m going to go have the stuff tucked or plucked.
—Dolly Parton, 2003The physician should look upon the patient as a besieged city and try to rescue him with every means that art and science place at his command.
—Alexander of Tralles, c. 600The only evidence, so far as I know, about another life is, first, that we have no evidence; and, secondly, that we are rather sorry that we have not, and wish we had.
—Robert G. Ingersoll, 1879Once something becomes discernible, or understandable, we no longer need to repeat it. We can destroy it.
—Robert Wilson, 1991Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
—Theodore Roosevelt, 1903The charm, one might say the genius, of memory is that it is choosy, chancy, and temperamental: it rejects the edifying cathedral and indelibly photographs the small boy outside, chawing a hunk of melon in the dust.
—Elizabeth Bowen, 1955You can be up to your boobies in white satin, with gardenias in your hair and no sugar cane for miles, but you can still be working on a plantation.
—Billie Holiday, 1956