Europe

Explore 4622 quotes by people from Europe

I know my soul hath power to know all things,
Yet is she blind and ignorant in all:
I know I'm one of Nature's little kings,
Yet to the least and vilest things am thrall.

Sir John Davies

Of Human Knowledge

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Topic

Duality of man

Author

Sir John Davies

Source

Of Human Knowledge

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1599 1590s 16th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Davies, John, Sir. Nosce Teipsum. 1599, st. 44.

It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material.

Francis Crick

Proposing the double helix as the structure of DNA.

More information about this quote

Topic

DNA Genetics Biology Moments of discovery

Author

Francis Crick

Source

Nature

Medium

Magazine

Genre

Scientific literature

Language

English

Time

1953 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Crick, Francis and James D. Watson. "Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid." Nature, 25 Apr. 1953.

Did you ever hear my definition of marriage? It is, that it resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they can not be separated; often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing any one who comes between them.

Sydney Smith

More information about this quote

Topic

Marriage

Author

Sydney Smith

Statement Type

Definition

Language

English

Time

1845 1840s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Smith, Sydney. Quoted in A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith, by Saba Holland. Vol. 1, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1855, ch. 11.

We come out of the dark and go into the dark again, and in between lie the experiences of our life. But the beginning and end, birth and death, we do not experience; they have no subjective character, they fall entirely in the category of objective events, and that's that.

Thomas Mann

The Magic Mountain

More information about this quote

Topic

The human condition Life and death

Author

Thomas Mann

Source

The Magic Mountain

Medium

Novel

Language

German

Time

1924 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Mann, Thomas. Der Zauberberg [The Magic Mountain]. S. Fischer Verlag, 1924, ch. 6.

Current Citation

Mann, Thomas. The Magic Mountain. Everyman's Library, 2005, ch. 6.

The pleasure is momentary, the position ridiculous, and the expense damnable.

Lord Chesterfield

On sex.

More information about this quote

Topic

Sex

Speaker

Lord Chesterfield

Language

English

Time

1773 1770s 18th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Stanhope, Philip Dormer. Stated to his son, Philip Stanhope. c. 1773.

And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.

Roald Dahl

The Minpins

More information about this quote

Topic

Secrets Paying attention Magic

Author

Roald Dahl

Source

The Minpins

Medium

Novel

Genre

Children's literature

Language

English

Time

1990 1990s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Dahl, Roald. The Minpins. Jonathan Cape, 1991.

For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.

Apostle Paul

Romans 7:19

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Topic

Good and evil Sin Human nature

Author

Apostle Paul

Source

Romans The Bible

Medium

Scripture

Genre

Religious literature

Statement Type

Irony

Language

Greek

Time

56 50s 1st century

Era

Classical antiquity

Authentication Score 3

Citation

The Holy Bible: The King James Version. 1611. (Romans 7:19).

Conversation... Is the art of never appearing a bore, of knowing how to say everything interestingly, to entertain with no matter what, to be charming with nothing at all.

Guy de Maupassant

More information about this quote

Topic

Conversation

Author

Guy de Maupassant

Source

On the Water

Medium

Short story

Statement Type

Definition

Language

French

Time

1876 1870s 19th century

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Maupassant, Guy De. Sur l'Eau [Afloat]. Paris: Libraire Ollendorff, 1888.

Current Citation

Maupassant, Guy De. Afloat, translated by Douglas Parmée. NYRB Classics, 2008.

They are plants that will grow in any soil that is cultivated by the hands of others; and, when once they have taken root, they will extinguish every other vegetable that grows around them... The most ignorant, the most bungling member of that profession, will, if placed in the most obscure part of the country, promote litigiousness, and amass more wealth without labor, than the most opulent farmer with all his toils.

J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur

On lawyers.

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Topic

Lawyers

Author

J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur

Source

Letters from an American Farmer

Language

English

Time

1782 1780s 18th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Crevecoeur, Michel Guillaume Jean [published as J. Hector St. John]. "What Is an American?" Letters from an American Farmer. London: Davies & Davies, 1782.

Current Citation

Crevecoeur, J. Hector St. John. "Letters From an American Farmer." Letters From an American Farmer and Sketches of Eighteenth-Century America, edited by Albert E. Stone. Penguin Classics, 1981.

Zen is a liberation from time. For if we open our eyes and see clearly, it becomes obvious that there is no other time than this instant, and that the past and the future are abstractions without any concrete reality.

Alan Watts

The Way of Zen

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More information about this quote

Topic

Being present The present Time

Author

Alan Watts

Source

The Way of Zen

Genre

Religious literature Philosophical literature

Language

English

Time

1957 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Watts, Alan. The Way of Zen. Vintage Books, 1957.

Time, you old gipsy man,
Will you not stay,
Put up your caravan
Just for one day?

Ralph Hodgson

More information about this quote

Topic

Relentlessness of time Time

Author

Ralph Hodgson

Source

Time, You Old Gipsy Man

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1917 1910s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Hodgson, Ralph. "Time, You Old Gipsy Man." Poems. The Macmillan Company, 1917, I. 1.

At its best monogamy may be the wish to find someone to die with; at its worst it is a cure for the terrors of aliveness. They are easily confused.

Adam Phillips

More information about this quote

Topic

Marriage

Author

Adam Phillips

Source

Monogamy

Language

English

Time

1996 1990s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Phillips, Adam. Monogamy. Faber & Faber/Pantheon Books, 1996.

My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.

Apostle Paul

2nd Corinthians 12:9

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Topic

Grace Weakness

Author

Apostle Paul

Source

2nd Corinthians The Bible

Medium

Scripture

Genre

Religious literature

Language

Greek

Time

56 50s 1st century

Era

Classical antiquity

Authentication Score 3

Citation

The Holy Bible: The King James Version. 1611. (2nd Corinthians 12:9).

The treatment of the Negro is America's greatest and most conspicuous scandal.

Gunnar Myrdal

More information about this quote

Topic

Race relations

Author

Gunnar Myrdal

Source

An American Dilemma

Genre

Political literature

Language

English

Time

1944 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Myrdal, Gunnar. An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy. Vol. 2, Harper & Brothers, 1944, ch. 45, sect. 9.

If the French noblesse had been capable of playing cricket with their peasants, their chateaux would never have been burnt.

G.M. Trevelyan

More information about this quote

Topic

French Revolution Causes of revolution Revolution Elites Counterfactual history

Author

G.M. Trevelyan

Source

English Social History

Genre

Historical literature

Language

English

Time

1942 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Trevelyan, George Macaulay. English Social History: A Survey of Six Centuries Chaucer to Queen Victoria. Longmans, Green and Company, 1942, ch. 8.

Afflicted by the thought that where
Beauty was, nothing ever ran quite straight,
which, no doubt, was why so many people
looked on it as immoral.

John Galsworthy

More information about this quote

Topic

Beauty

Speaker

Jolyon Forsyte

Author

John Galsworthy

Source

In Chancery

Medium

Novel

Language

English

Time

1920 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Galsworthy, John. In Chancery. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1920, pt. 1, ch. 13.

True, 'tis an unhappy circumstance of life that love should ever die before us, and that the Man so often should outlive the Lover. But say what you will, 'tis better to be left than never to have been loved.

William Congreve

The Way of the World

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Topic

Dangers of love Men and women

Speaker

Mrs. Marwood

Author

William Congreve

Source

The Way of the World

Medium

Play

Genre

Comedy (play) Comedy

Language

English

Time

1700 1700s 18th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Congreve, William. The Way of the World. Performed by John Verbruggen and Anne Bracegirdle. Mar. 1700, Lincoln's Inn Fields, London, England, UK, act 2, sc. 1.

Current Citation

Congreve, William. "The Way of the World." The Way of the World and Other Plays, edited by Eric S. Rump. Penguin Classics, 2006, act 2, sc. 1.

Children are the future not because they will one day be adults but because humanity is becoming more and more a child, because childhood is the image of the future.

Milan Kundera

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

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Topic

Children Social change The future

Author

Milan Kundera

Source

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

Medium

Novel

Language

Czech

Time

1979 1970s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Kundera, Milan. Le Livre du rire et de l'oubli [The Book of Laughter and Forgetting]. Gallimard, 1979.

Current Citation

Kundera, Milan. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, translated by Aaron Asher. Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 1999.

In the twenty-first century, the robot will take the place which slave labor occupied in ancient civilization.

Nikola Tesla

More information about this quote

Topic

Robots

Speaker

Nikola Tesla

Source

A Machine to End War Liberty magazine

Medium

Interview Magazine

Language

English

Time

1935 1930s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Tesla, Nikola. "A Machine to End War." Interviewed by George Sylvester Viereck. Liberty Magazine, 9 Feb. 1935.

In the first stone which he flings at the wild animals he pursues, in the first stick that he seizes to strike down the fruit which hangs above his reach, we see the appropriation of one article for the purpose of aiding in the acquisition of another, and thus discover the origin of capital.

Robert Torrens

More information about this quote

Topic

Tools Capital

Author

Robert Torrens

Source

An Essay on the Production of Wealth

Medium

Essay

Genre

Economic literature

Language

English

Time

1821 1820s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Torrens, Robert. An Essay on the Production of Wealth. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1821, ch. 2.