Category Archives: Quotes

As every second post on this site is a quote. You’ll find a deep and broad variety of quotes under this category, which overlap with several other tags and categories. Many of the quotes are larded with links for deeper reading on the subject of the quote, or connections between the subject of the quotes and other people, things, or ideas. See the Taxonomies page for more about this category.

Mohenjo Daro

“Mohenjo Daro: Ancient city on the bank of the Indus River, in present-day southern Pakistan. At about 3 miles (5 kilometers) in circuit, it was the largest city of the Indus civilization in the 3rd-2nd millennium BC, and it probably served as the capital of and extensive state. It was fortified and its citadel contained, according to archaeological finds, an elaborate bath, a granary, and two halls of assembly.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

Fables of Bidpai

“Fables of Bidpai: An Arabic version of a collection of Indian fables common to Buddhism and Brahminism, also known as Kalilah and Dimnah. They were collected in the Sanskrit Panchatantra and translated into Persian about AD 55. Bidpai means court scholar, and the allegorical animal stories are told as a wise man’s advice to a young Indian price.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

Li Po on Life

“Since Life is but a Dream,

Why toil to no avail?”

Li Po

“A Homily on Ideals in Life, Uttered in Springtime on Rising from a Drunken Slumber” (ca. 750)

Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

Maxine Hong Kingston

“Maxine Hong Kingston originally Maxine Hong: (b.1940) U.S. writer. Born to an immigrant family in Stockton, California, she has taught at various schools and universities. Her novels and nonfiction works explore the myths, realities, and cultural identities of Chinese and American families and the role of women in Chinese culture. Her widely admired The Woman Warrior (1976) and China Men (1980) blend fact and fantasy to tell aspects of her family’s history; Tripmaster Monkey (1988) concerns a young Chinese-American man.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

Descartes, Famously, on Ontology and Epistemology

“I think, therefore I am.”

Rene DescartesLe Discours de la Method (1637)

Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003.

Book of Answers: Tennessee Williams

“How long was the first run of Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire (1947)? The play opened in New York in 1947 and ran for 855 performances.”

Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.

The Doubter’s Companion: Amorality

“Amorality: A quality admired and rewarded in modern organizations, where it is referred to through metaphors such as professionalism and efficiency.

Amorality is corporatist wisdom. It is one of the terms which highlights the confusion in society between what is officially taught as a value and what is actually rewarded by the structure.

Immorality is doing wrong of our own volition. Amorality is doing it because a structure or an organization expects us to do it. Amorality is thus worse than immorality because it involves denying our responsibility and therefore our existence as anything more than animal.”

Excerpted from: Saul, John Ralston. The Doubter’s Companion. New York: The Free Press, 1994.

Henry Adams on Estimating Intelligence

“There is no such thing as an underestimate of average intelligence.”

Henry Adams

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

Term of Art: Sound/Symbol Association

“sound/symbol association: The idea that certain sounds are paired with specific symbols.”

Excerpted from: Turkington, Carol, and Joseph R. Harris, PhD. The Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities. New York: Facts on File, 2006.

Write It Right: Declared for Said

“Declared for Said. To a newspaper reporter no one ever seems to say anything; all ‘declare.’ Like ‘alleged’ (which see) the word is tiresome exceedingly.”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.