Torsten > Torsten's Quotes

“Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Work is the curse of the drinking classes.”
― Oscar Wilde

“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.”
― Groucho Marx

“One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.”
― Groucho Marx

“Those are my principles, and if you don't like them...well I have others.”
― Groucho Marx

“I've had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it.”
― Groucho Marx

“I never forget a face, but in your case I'll be glad to make an exception.”
― Groucho Marx

“From the moment I picked up your book until I put it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it.”
― Groucho Marx

“He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot.”
― Groucho Marx

“A child of five could understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.”
― Groucho Marx

“Marriage is a wonderful institution...but who wants to live in an institution?”
― Groucho Marx

“Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

“It is not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?”
― Henry David Thoreau

“Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?”
― Henry David Thoreau, Familiar letters

“What does education often do? It makes a straight-cut ditch of a free, meandering brook.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“A man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his time well. There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of life getting his living.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“Dance first. Think later. It's the natural order.”
― Samuel Beckett

“Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness.”
― Samuel Beckett

“I count it as an absolute certainty that in paradise, everyone naps. A nap is a perfect pleasure and it's useful, too. It splits the day into two halves, making each half more manageable and enjoyable. How much easier it is to work in the morning if we know we have a nap to look forward to after lunch; and how much more pleasant the late afternoon and evening become after a little sleep. If you know there is a nap to come later in the day, then you can banish forever that terrible sense of doom one feels at 9 A.M. with eight hours of straight toil ahead. Not only that, but a nap can offer a glimpse into a twilight nether world where gods play and dreams happen.”
― Tom Hodgkinson, How to Be Idle

“Unexpected intrusions of beauty. This is what life is.”
― Saul Bellow, Herzog

“I haven't been everywhere, but it's on my list.”
― Susan Sontag

“It is thanks to my evening reading alone that I am still more or less sane.”
― W.G. Sebald, Vertigo