Archive

Quotes

A good dog, sir, deserves a good bone.

—Ben Jonson, 1633

The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.

—Laozi

I was born without knowing why, I have lived without knowing why, and I am dying without either knowing why or how.

—Pierre Gassendi, 1655

People living deeply have no fear of death.

—Anaïs Nin, 1935

War has silenced all laws.

—Lucan, c. 65

I imagine that one of the first forms of behavior, like one of the first signals, may be reduced to this: “Keep me warm.”

—Michel Serres, 1982

Families, I hate you! Shut-in homes, closed doors, jealous possessions of happiness.

—André Gide, 1897

The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a star.

—Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, 1825

Many need no other provocation to enmity than that they find themselves excelled.

—Samuel Johnson, 1751

My interest is in the future, because I am going to spend the rest of my life there.

—Charles F. Kettering, 1946

To be a poet is to have a soul so quick to discern that no shade of quality escapes it, and so quick to feel that discernment is but a hand playing with finely ordered variety on the chords of emotion—a soul in which knowledge passes instantaneously into feeling, and feeling flashes back as a new organ of knowledge. One may have that condition by fits only.

—George Eliot, c. 1872

The U.S. presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones.

—Anthony Burgess, 1972

Animals are such agreeable friends—they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.

—George Eliot, 1857