Hospitality consists in a little fire, a little food, and an immense quiet.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1856Quotes
The man in constant fear is every day condemned.
—Publilius Syrus, c. 50 BCMammon, n. The god of the world’s leading religion. His chief temple is in the holy city of New York.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1911Just to fill the hour—that is happiness.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1844We are able to find everything in our memory, which is like a dispensary or chemical laboratory in which chance steers our hand sometimes to a soothing drug and sometimes to a dangerous poison.
—Marcel Proust, c. 1922He that will cheat you at play, will cheat you any way.
—Thomas Fuller, 1732No one makes a revolution by himself, and there are some revolutions which humanity accomplishes without quite knowing how, because it is everybody who takes them in hand.
—George Sand, 1851That sweet bondage which is freedom’s self.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1813Divine nature gave the fields; human art built the cities.
—Marcus Terentius Varro, c. 70 BCCooking is the most massive rush. It’s like having the most amazing hard-on, with Viagra sprinkled on top of it, and it’s still there twelve hours later.
—Gordon Ramsey, 2003The Founding Fathers in their wisdom decided that children were an unnatural strain on parents. So they provided jails called schools, equipped with tortures called an education. School is where you go between when your parents can’t take you and industry can’t take you.
—John Updike, 1963It is permitted to learn even from an enemy.
—Ovid, c. 8It’s the end of the world every day, for someone.
—Margaret Atwood, 2000