New things are always ugly.
—Willa Cather, 1921Quotes
There is no foreign land; it is the traveler only that is foreign.
—Robert Louis Stevenson, 1883He may be a patriot for Austria, but the question is whether he is a patriot for me.
—Emperor Francis Joseph, c. 1850Animals are such agreeable friends—they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.
—George Eliot, 1857The twilight is the crack between the worlds.
—Carlos Castaneda, 1968Oh, democracy! Whither are you leading us?
—Aristophanes, 414 BCAnd to our age’s drowsy blood / Still shouts the inspiring sea.
—James Russell Lowell, 1848The various modes of religion which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true, by the philosophers equally false, and by the magistrate as equally useful.
—Edward Gibbon, 1776A broken friendship may be soldered but will never be sound.
—Thomas Fuller, 1732The important thing, I think, is not to be bitter. You know, if it turns out that there is a God, I don’t think that he’s evil. I think that the worst thing you could say about him is that basically he’s an underachiever. After all, you know, there are worse things in life than death.
—Woody Allen, 1975Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height.
—E.M. Forster, 1910Civilization, as we know it, is a movement and not a condition, a voyage and not a harbor.
—Arnold Toynbee, 1948It is a luxury to be understood.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1831