Archive

Quotes

We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language.

—Oscar Wilde, 1887

A mind lively and at ease can do with seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not answer.

—Jane Austen, 1815

Anyone who doesn’t know foreign languages knows nothing of his own.

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1821

Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.

—Reinhold Niebuhr, 1944

Envy is the basis of democracy.

—Bertrand Russell, 1930

Envy and hatred are apt to blind the eyes and render them unable to behold things as they are.

—Margaret of Valois, c. 1600

To love a woman who scorns you is to lick honey from a thorn.

—Welsh proverb

That 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, 1569

For, 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, 1851

I imagined it was more difficult to die. 

—Louis XIV, 1715

I 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, 1595

To live for a time close to great minds is the best kind of education.

—John Buchan, 1940

The 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