Iron may break gold, but water remains whole.
—Ge Hong, c. 300
Archive
Quotes
Today’s city is the most vulnerable social structure ever conceived by man.
—Martin Oppenheimer, 1969The breaking of a wave cannot explain the whole sea.
—Vladimir Nabokov, 1941There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
—Oscar Wilde, 1891Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps, for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they ought to be.
—William Hazlitt, 1819No nation was ever ruined by trade.
—Benjamin Franklin, 1774Sanity is madness put to good uses; waking life is a dream controlled.
—George Santayana, 1920Language is a part of our organism and no less complicated than it.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1915Famous, adj. Conspicuously miserable.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1906One thing alone not even God can do: to make undone whatever has been done.
—Aristotle, c. 350 BCCurse on all laws but those which love has made.
—Alexander Pope, 1717I used to think that everyone was just being funny. But now I don’t know. I mean, how can you tell?
—Andy Warhol, 1970Whatever the apparent cause of any riots may be, the real one is always want of happiness.
—Thomas Paine, 1792