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Library Update: quotes archive
The Library Update is emailed each month to subscribers. Each issue contains an interesting or humourous quote. Subscribe to the Library Update.
- no.24
- We should give as we would receive, cheerfully, quickly, and without hesitation; for there is no grace in a benefit that sticks to the fingers. –Seneca, Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist (4 BCE – 65 CE)
- no.23
- Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race. -H.G. Wells, writer (1866-1946)
- no.22
- Exhilaration is that feeling you get just after a great idea hits you, and just before you realise what's wrong with it. –Rex Harrison, actor (1908–1990)
- no.21
- Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. – Plato, philosopher (429?–347 BCE)
- no.20
- I sought peace, and found it nowhere, unless I was in a little nook with a little book. -Thomas á Kempis, regular canon (c. 1380–1471)
- no.19
- A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience. –Miguel de Cervantes, novelist (1547-1616)
- no.18
- You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother. –Albert Einstein, physicist (1879–1955)
- no.17
- Finance is the art of passing money from hand to hand until it finally disappears. –Robert W. Sarnoff, media executive, (1918–1997)
- no.16
- A world without tomatoes is like a string quartet without violins. –Laurie Colwin, writer (1944–1992)
- no.15
- If children grew up according to early indications, we should have nothing but geniuses. -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, dramatist, novelist, poet, scientist (1749–1832)
- no.14
- A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it. –William Styron, novelist (1925–2006)
- no.13
- A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the word you first thought of. -Burt Bacharach, songwriter (1928-).
- no.12
- At the simplest level, only people who know they do not know everything will be curious enough to find things out. –Virginia Postrel, editor, writer (1960–)
- no.11
- Is the mind more like a fancy system of domino chains or a bathtub full of spring-loaded mousetraps? I'm betting on the latter. –Douglas Hofstadter, scholar of cognitive science, physics, and comparative literature (1945–)
- no.10
- Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop. –Ovid, poet (43 BC–17/18 AD)
- no.9
- It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning. -Bill Watterson, comic strip artist (1958-)
- no.8
- Preach not to others what they should eat, but eat as becomes you, and be silent. –Epictetus, Roman slave and Stoic philosopher (55 AD–135 AD)
- no.7
- Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present. -Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Roman emperor, Stoic philosopher (161–180)
- no.6
- In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. -George Orwell, novelist, essayist, journalist and critic (1903–1950)
- no.5
- There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened. –Douglas Adams, writer (1952–2001)
- no.4
- Sometimes you feel like giving up, but then you look at other people who have given up, and the results aren't that good. -Robert Brault, writer (1963–)
- no.3
- No matter what side of an argument you're on, you always find some people on your side that you wish were on the other side. -Jascha Heifetz, violinist (1901–1987)
- no.2
- The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself. -Oscar Wilde, poet and playwright (1854–1900)
- no.1
- It is better to sleep on things beforehand than lie awake about them afterwards. -Baltasar Gracian, philosopher and writer (1601–1658)