We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language.
—Oscar Wilde, 1887
Archive
Quotes
A mind lively and at ease can do with seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not answer.
—Jane Austen, 1815Anyone who doesn’t know foreign languages knows nothing of his own.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1821Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.
—Reinhold Niebuhr, 1944Envy is the basis of democracy.
—Bertrand Russell, 1930Envy and hatred are apt to blind the eyes and render them unable to behold things as they are.
—Margaret of Valois, c. 1600To love a woman who scorns you is to lick honey from a thorn.
—Welsh proverbThat which the sober man keeps in his breast, the drunken man lets out at the lips. Astute people, when they want to ascertain a man’s true character, make him drunk.
—Martin Luther, 1569For, say they, when cruising in an empty ship, if you can get nothing better out of the world, get a good dinner out of it, at least.
—Herman Melville, 1851I imagined it was more difficult to die.
—Louis XIV, 1715I have always found it in mine own experience an easier matter to devise many and profitable inventions than to dispose of one of them to the good of the author himself.
—Hugh Plat, 1595To live for a time close to great minds is the best kind of education.
—John Buchan, 1940The root of the kingdom is in the State. The root of the State is in the family. The root of the family is in the person of its Head.
—Mencius, c. 270 BC