All that is human must retrograde if it does not advance.
Edward Gibbon
Category: Quote of the Day
Aphorisms, proverbs, wise sayings and other witty, pithy stuff
17OCT2021 – Quote of the Day
It was at Rome, on the fifteenth of October 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefoot friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind.
Edward Gibbon
16OCT2021 – Quote of the Day
Vicissitudes of fortune, which spares neither man nor the proudest of his works, which buries empires and cities in a common grave.
Edward Gibbon
15OCT2021 – Quote of the Day
Antoninus diffused order and tranquility over the greatest part of the earth. His reign is marked by the rare advantage of furnishing very few materials for history; which is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
Edward Gibbon
14OCT2021 – Quote of the Day
Life cannot wait until the sciences may have explained the universe scientifically. We cannot put off living until we are ready. The most salient characteristic of life is its coerciveness: it is always urgent, “here and now” without any possible postponement. Life is fired at us point-blank. And culture, which is but its interpretation, cannot wait any more than can life itself.
José Ortega y Gasset
13OCT2021 – Quote of the Day
If hard work is not another name for talent, it is the best possible substitute for it.
James A. Garfield
12OCT2021 – Quote of the Day
Poverty is uncomfortable, as I can testify; but nine times out of ten the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard and compelled to sink or swim for himself.
James A. Garfield
11OCT2021 – Quote of the Day
The beginnings and endings of all human undertakings are untidy, the building of a house, the writing of a novel, the demolition of a bridge, and, eminently, the finish of a voyage.
John Galsworthy
10OCT2021 – Quote of the Day
There’s just one rule for politicians all over the world: Don’t say in Power what you say in Opposition; if you do, you only have to carry out what the other fellows have found impossible.
John Galsworthy
09OCT2021 – Quote of the Day
The value of a sentiment is the amount of sacrifice you are prepared to make for it.
John Galsworthy