If the bird does like its cage, and does like its sugar, and will not leave it, why keep the door so very carefully shut?
—Olive Schreiner, 1883
Archive
Quotes
When nature is overriden, she takes her revenge.
—Marya Mannes, 1958Man’s great mission is not to conquer nature by main force but to cooperate with her intelligently but lovingly for his own purposes.
—Lewis Mumford, 1962Never make a defense or apology before you be accused.
—Charles I, 1636Nationalism is an infantile disease, the measles of mankind.
—Albert Einstein, 1929The sleep of reason produces monsters.
—Francisco Goya, 1799Vanity of vanities; all is vanity.
—Ecclesiastes, c. 250 BCIt is not too much to expect that our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter.
—Lewis Strauss, 1954The self is like an infant: given free rein, it craves to suckle.
—al-Busiri, c. 1250Time’s violence rends the soul; by the rent eternity enters.
—Simone Weil, 1947Friendships begin with liking or gratitude—roots that can be pulled up.
—George Eliot, 1876When night in her rusty dungeon has imprisoned our eyesight, and that we are shut separately in our chambers from resort, the devil keeps his audit in our sin-guilty consciences.
—Thomas Nashe, 1594Friendship! Sir, there can be no such thing without an equality.
—George Farquhar, 1702