Anyone who in discussion quotes authority uses his memory rather than his intellect.
—Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1500
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Quotes
Communities do not cease to be colonies because they are independent.
—Benjamin Disraeli, 1863If a parricide is more wicked than anyone who commits homicide—because he kills not merely a man but a near relative—without doubt worse still is he who kills himself, because there is none nearer to a man than himself.
—Saint Augustine, c. 420Friend! It is a common word, often lightly used. Like other good and beautiful things, it may be tarnished by careless handling.
—Harriet Jacobs, 1861There is nothing sillier than a silly laugh.
—Catullus, c. 60 BCOnly the little people pay taxes.
—Leona Helmsley, 1989If you must take care that your opinions do not differ in the least from those of the person with whom you are talking, you might just as well be alone.
—Yoshida Kenko, c. 1330Suffering has its limit, but fears are endless.
—Pliny the Younger, c. 108Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.
—William Blake, c. 1790Alcohol is the monarch of liquids.
—Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, 1825Your body is the church where nature asks to be reverenced.
—Marquis de Sade, 1797Why is a ship under sail more poetical than a hog in a high wind? The hog is all nature, the ship is all art.
—Lord Byron, 1821The only authors whom I acknowledge as American are the journalists. They indeed are not great writers, but they speak the language of their countrymen, and make themselves heard by them.
—Alexis de Tocqueville, 1840