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In some men only the feeble glimmerings of Taste appear; the beauties which they relish are of the coarsest kind; and of these they have but a weak and confused impression, while in others, Taste rises to an acute discernment, and a lively enjoyment of the most refined beauties.

Hugh Blair

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Topic

Taste Refinement Discernment Elitism

Author

Hugh Blair

Source

Lectures on Rhetoric and Belle Lettres

Medium

Lecture

Language

English

Time

1787 1780s 18th century

Era

Age of Enlightenment

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Blair, Hugo. "Lecture II: Taste." Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres. 1787, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland.

Current Citation

Blair, Hugo. "Lecture II: Taste." Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres. SIU Press, 2005.

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

More information about this quote

Topic

Inevitability of death Death

Author

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Source

Dirge Without Music

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1928 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Millay, Edna St. Vincent. "Dirge Without Music." The Buck in the Snow, and Other Poems. Harper & Brothers, 1928, st. 1.

What mighty ills have not been done by woman!
Who was 't betrayed the Capitol? -A woman!
Who lost Mark Antony the world? -A woman!
Who was the cause of a long ten years' war,
And laid at last old Troy in ashes? -Woman!
Destructive, damnable, deceitful woman!

Thomas Otway

The Orphan

More information about this quote

Topic

Misogyny Women

Speaker

Castalio

Author

Thomas Otway

Source

The Orphan

Genre

Tragedy (play) Tragedy

Language

English

Time

1680 1680s 17th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Otway, Thomas. The Orphan. Performed by Elizabeth Barry and Thomas Betterton and Thomas Gillow and John Wiltshire and Henry Norris and William Smith and Thomas Percival and Margaret Osborne and Joseph Williams. 1680, Dorset Garden Theatre, London, England, UK, act 3, sc. 1.

A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community.

Aldo Leopold

A Sand County Almanac

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Topic

Moral theory Environmental protection

Author

Aldo Leopold

Source

A Sand County Almanac

Medium

Essay

Genre

Nature writing

Language

English

Time

1949 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Leopold, Aldo. "The Land Ethic." A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There. Oxford University Press, 1949.

Recollect that the Almighty, who gave the dog to be companion of our pleasures and our toils, hath invested him with a nature noble and incapable of deceit.

Sir Walter Scott

The Talismam

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Topic

Dogs Man's best friend Man and animals

Author

Sir Walter Scott

Source

The Talismam

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1825 1820s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Scott, Walter, Sir. The Talisman. Edinburgh: Archibald Constable and Co./London: Hurst, Robinson and Co., 1825, ch. 24.

I come into the peace of wild things
Who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light.

Wendell Berry

More information about this quote

Topic

Man and nature Spending time in nature Nature

Author

Wendell Berry

Source

The Peace of Wild Things

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1968 1960s 20th century

Authentication Score 0

Citation

Berry, Wendell. "The Peace of Wild Things." Openings. Harcourt, Brace & World, 1968.

Men at forty
Learn to close softly
The doors to rooms they will not be
Coming back to.

Donald Justice

Read Men at Forty at Poetry Foundation

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Topic

Middle age The road not taken Shrinking horizons Aging

Author

Donald Justice

Source

Men at Forty

Statement Type

Metaphor, analogy and simile

Language

English

Time

1967 1960s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Justice, Donald. "Men at Forty." Night Light. Wesleyan University Press, 1967.

The fog comes
On little cat feet.
It sits looking
Over harbour and city
On silent haunches
And then moves on.

Carl Sandburg

Read Fog at Poetry Foundation

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Topic

Fog Weather

Author

Carl Sandburg

Source

Fog

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1916 1910s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Sandburg, Carl. "Fog." Chicago Poems. Henry Holt and Company, 1916, I. 1.

Current Citation

Sandburg, Carl. "Fog." The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2003, I. 1.

Truth has no special time of its own. Its hour is now—always, and indeed then most truly when it seems most unsuitable to actual circumstances.

Albert Schweitzer

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Topic

Inconvenient truth Truth

Author

Albert Schweitzer

Source

On the Edge of the Primeval Forest

Genre

Autobiography and memoir

Language

German

Time

1922 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Schweitzer, Albert. Zwischen Wasser un Unwald [On the Edge of the Primeval Forest]. A. and C. Black, 1922, ch. 11.

Current Citation

Schweitzer. "On the Edge of the Primeval Forest." The Primeval Forest. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.

There are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year's course. Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word "happy" would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.

Carl Jung

Quoted in The Times of London

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Topic

Night and day Happiness Sadness Yin and yang

Speaker

Carl Jung

Source

The Times of London

Medium

Newspaper

Language

English

Time

1960 1960s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Jung, Carl. "The Art of Living." Sunday Times, 17 July 1960.

The Puritans, who nobly fled from a land of despotism to a land of freedom, where they could not only enjoy their own religion, but could prevent everybody else from enjoying his.

Charles Farrar Browne

More information about this quote

Topic

Puritanism

Author

Charles Farrar Browne

Medium

Letter

Statement Type

Irony

Language

English

Time

1866 1860s 19th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Browne, Charles Farrar. "Introduction to the Club." London Punch Letters. c. 1866, no. 5.

Laws are generally found to be nets of such a texture, as the little creep through, the great break through, and the middle-sized are alone entangled in.

William Shenstone

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Topic

Nature of law Law

Author

William Shenstone

Medium

Essay

Genre

Political literature

Language

English

Time

1764 1760s 18th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Shenstone, William. "On Politicks." The Works in Verse and Prose of William Shenstone, Esq. Vol. 2, London: R. and J. Dodsley, 1764.

O, what may man within him hide,
Though angel on the outward side!

William Shakespeare

Measure for Measure

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Read Measure for Measure at The Folger Shakespeare Library

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Topic

Looks are deceiving Wolf in sheep's clothing Appearance vs. reality

Speaker

Duke Vincentio

Author

William Shakespeare

Source

Measure for Measure

Medium

Play

Genre

Comedy (play)

Language

English

Time

1616 1610s 17th century

Era

European Renaissance

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Shakespeare, William. "Measure for Measure." Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. London: Edward Blount and William and Isaac Jaggard, 1623, act 3, sc. 2.

Current Citation

Shakespeare, William. "Measure for Measure." The Norton Shakespeare, edited by Stephen Greenblatt, et al., 3rd ed., W. W. Norton & Company, 2015, act 3, sc. 2.

Old-age, a second child, by Nature cursed
With more and greater evils than the first,
Weak, sickly, full of pains; in ev'ry breath
Railing at life, and yet afraid of death.

Charles Churchill

More information about this quote

Topic

Old age

Author

Charles Churchill

Source

Gotham

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1764 1760s 18th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Churchill, Charles. Gotham. London: W. Flexney, 1764, bk. 1, I. 215.

Never think that you're not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you very much at your own reckoning.

Anthony Trollope

More information about this quote

Topic

Confidence Believing in oneself

Speaker

The Earl

Author

Anthony Trollope

Source

The Small House at Allington

Medium

Novel

Statement Type

Advice

Language

English

Time

1862 1860s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Trollope, Anthony. "The Small House at Allington." Cornhill Magazine, 1862-1863. Monthly serial.

Current Citation

Trollope, Anthony. The Small House at Allington. Penguin Classics, 1991, ch. 32.

On the geologic time scale, a human lifetime is reduced to a brevity that is too inhibiting to think about. The mind blocks the information.

John McPhee

More information about this quote

Topic

Scale Shortness of life

Author

John McPhee

Source

Basin and Range

Language

English

Time

1981 1980s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

McPhee, John. Basin and Range. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1981.

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work-
I am the grass; I cover all.

Carl Sandburg

Read Grass at Poetry Foundation

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Topic

Casualties of war War

Author

Carl Sandburg

Source

Grass

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1918 1910s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Sandburg, Carl. "Grass." Cornhuskers. Henry Holt and Company, 1918, I. 1.

Current Citation

Sandburg, Carl. "Grass." The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2003, I. 1.

Anything that is worth doing has been done frequently. Things hitherto undone should be given, I suspect, a wide berth.

Max Beerbohm

From Bloomsbury to Baywater

More information about this quote

Topic

Trying new things

Author

Max Beerbohm

Source

From Bloomsbury to Baywater

Language

English

Time

1946 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Beerbohm, Max. "From Bloomsbury to Baywater." Mainly on the Air. William Heinemann, 1946. Originally published in World Review of Reviews, Aug. 1940.

Along with success come drugs, divorce, fornication, bullying, travel, meditation, medication, depression, neurosis, and suicide. With failure comes failure.

Joseph Heller

Quoted in Playboy Magazine

More information about this quote

Topic

Success and failure Success Failure

Speaker

Joseph Heller

Source

Playboy Magazine

Medium

Interview Magazine

Language

English

Time

1975 1970s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Heller, Joseph. Conversations with Joseph Heller, edited by Adam J. Sorkin. University Press of Mississippi, 1993. Originally spoken during an interview by Sam Merrill. Playboy, June 1975.

Old and ruined, all rotted and broken up
These plum trees function gorgeously
A few days every year
In a way nobody else does.

Philip Whalen

More information about this quote

Topic

Trees Nature scene

Author

Philip Whalen

Source

Scenes of Life at the Capital

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1970 1970s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Whalen, Philip. Scenes of Life at the Capital. Maya Quartos, 1970.