UnwiseOwl > UnwiseOwl's Quotes

“Girls are like slugs—they probably serve some purpose, but it's hard to imagine what.”
― Bill Watterson, The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes: A Calvin and Hobbes Treasury

“We must stand up against old age and make up for its drawbacks by taking pains. We must fight it as we should an illness. We must look after our health, use moderate exercise, take just enough food and drink to recruit, but not to overload, our strength. Nor is it the body alone that must be supported, but the intellect and soul much more.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero, Treatises on Friendship and Old Age

“Just as apples when unripe are torn from trees, but when ripe and mellow drop down, so it is violence that takes life from young men, ripeness from old. This ripeness is so delightful to me that, as I approach nearer to death, I seem, as it were, to be sighting land, and to be coming to port at last after a long voyage.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero, Treatises on Friendship and Old Age

“But if I am wrong in thinking the human soul immortal, I am glad to be wrong; nor will I allow the mistake which gives me so much pleasure to be wrested from me as long as I live.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero, Treatises on Friendship and Old Age

“Imagine me; I shall not exist if you do not imagine me; try to discern the doe in me, trembling in the forest of my own iniquity; let's even smile a little. After all, there is no harm in smiling.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

“You learnt a great deal, Louisa, and so did your brother. Ologies of all kinds from morning to night. If there is any Ology left, of any description, that has not been worn to rags in this house, all I can say is, I hope I shall never hear its name”
― Charles Dickens

“They have plundered the world, stripping naked the land in their hunger… they are driven by greed, if their enemy be rich; by ambition, if poor… They ravage, they slaughter, they seize by false pretenses, and all of this they hail as the construction of empire. And when in their wake nothing remains but a desert, they call that peace.”
― Tacitus, The Agricola and The Germania

“Step by step they were led to things which dispose to vice, the lounge, the bath, the elegant banquet. All this in their ignorance they called civilisation, when it was but a part of their servitude.”
― Tacitus, The Agricola and The Germania

“Thálatta! Thálatta!”
― Xenophon, The Persian Expedition

“A garden to walk in and immensity to dream in--what more could he ask? A few flowers at his feet and above him the stars.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“This is what men call genius, just as they call a painted face beauty and a richly attired figure majesty. The confound the brilliance of the firmament with the star-shaped footprints of a duck in the mud.”
― Hugo, Victor, Les Misérables

“Gods prefer simple, vicious games, where you Do Not Achieve Transcendence but Go Straight To Oblivion; a key to the understanding of all religion is that a god's idea of amusement is Snakes and Ladders with greased rungs.”
― Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters

“They called themselves the Munrungs. It meant The People, or The True Human Beings.
It's what most people call themselves, to begin with. And then one day the tribe meets some other People or, if it's not been a good day, The Enemy. If only they'd think up a name like Some More True Human Beings, it'd save a lot of trouble later on”
― Terry Pratchett, The Carpet People

“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“Some things are fairly obvious when it's a seven-foot skeleton with a scythe telling you them”
― Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

“Getting an education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on.”
― Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

“But here's some advice, boy. Don't put your trust in revolutions. They always come around again. That's why they're called revolutions.”
― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

“It was sad, like those businessmen who came to work in serious clothes but wore colorful ties in a mad, desperate attempt to show there was a free spirit in there somewhere.”
― Terry Pratchett, Making Money

“Goddess, ...do not be angry with me about this. I am quite aware that my wife Penelope is nothing like so tall or so beautiful as yourself. She is only a woman, whereas you are an immortal. Nevertheless, I want to get home, and can think of nothing else.”
― Homer, The Odyssey

“Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt?”
― Plato, Phaedo

“Be of good cheer, then, my dear Crito, and say that you are burying my body only”
― Plato, Phaedo

“For a crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love.”
― Francis Bacon

“Where a man cannot fitly play his own part; if he have not a friend, he may quit the stage.”
― Francis Bacon, The Essays

“Nupital love maketh mankind; friendly love perfecteth it; but wanton love corrupteth, and embaseth it.”
― Francis Bacon

“There was never proud man thought so absurdly well of himself, as the lover doth of the person loved; and therefore it was well said, That it is impossible to love, and to be wise.”
― Francis Bacon

“I find that it is the best trade of all; for, whether we manage well or ill, we are paid just the same.”
― Molière, Le Médecin Malgré Lui

“A shoemaker, in making a pair of shoes, cannot spoil a scrap of leather without having to bear the loss; but in our business we may spoil a man without its costing us a farthing. The blunders are never put down to us, and it is always the fault of the fellow who dies. The best of this profession is, that there is the greatest honesty and discretion among the dead; for you never find them complain of the physician who has killed them.”
― Molière, Le Médecin Malgré Lui

“Kick in the door, and what did I tell you? Caught in the act, sinfully Scrabbling. Quick, eat those words.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

“The optimum population is modeled on the iceberg- eight-ninths below the water line, one-ninth above.”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

“You can't play Electro-magnetic Golf according to rules of Centrifugal Bumble-puppy.”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World