Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.
—E.B. White, 1944
Archive
Quotes
In the matter of furnishing, I find a certain absence of ugliness far worse than ugliness.
—Colette, 1944Usually speaking, the worst-bred person in company is a young traveler just returned from abroad.
—Jonathan Swift, c. 1730It is impossible to translate the poets. Can you translate music?
—Voltaire, c. 1732He who sings frightens away his ills.
—Miguel de Cervantes, 1605The sea is mother-death, and she is a mighty female, the one who wins, the one who sucks us all up.
—Anne Sexton, 1971Living is an ailment that is relieved every sixteen hours by sleep. A palliative. Death is the cure.
—Sébastien-Roch Nicolas Chamfort, c. 1790No human being is innocent, but there is a class of innocent human actions called games.
—W.H. Auden, 1962Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.
—Paul Valéry, 1943Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made—through disobedience and through rebellion.
—Oscar Wilde, 1891There are people whom one loves immediately and forever. Even to know they are alive in the world with one is quite enough.
—Nancy Spain, 1956Friendship is a plant that loves the sun—thrives ill under clouds.
—Bronson Alcott, 1872Business is other people’s money.
—Delphine de Girardin, 1852