Archive

Quotes

It would seem that in history it’s never a tooth for a tooth, but a thousand, a hundred thousand for one.

—Sybille Bedford, 1963

Our crime against criminals is that we treat them as villains.

—Friedrich Nietzsche, 1898

Friendship was given by nature to be an assistant to virtue, not a companion to vice.

—Marcus Tullius Cicero, c. 45 BC

There are two times in a man’s life when he should not speculate: when he can’t afford it, and when he can.

—Mark Twain, 1897

I would delight in music, but the music is discordant.

—Xie Lingyun, c. 425

When the physician said to him, “You have lived to be an old man,” he said, “That is because I never employed you as my physician.”

—Pausanias, c. 450 BC

I curse the night, yet doth from day me hide.

—William Drummond, 1616

No law is sufficiently convenient to all.

—Roman proverb

All civilization has from time to time become a thin crust over a volcano of revolution.

—Havelock Ellis, 1921

No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.

—Samuel Johnson, 1776

Conjecturing a Climate
Of unsuspended Suns –
Adds poignancy to Winter

—Emily Dickinson, 1863

The tune I remember, could I but keep the words.

—Virgil, 38 BC

Don’t try to make a profit on a bad trade; just try to find the best place to get out.

—Linda Bradford Raschke, 1992