Baggage!

Hussy! Inconsiderate jade! … Inveigling harlot! … a clandestine livelihood … Love is so whimsical … melancholy reflections … the world is out of riches, and I hate avarice … let’s be gay, while we may … a la Hogarth: 4 wives more: this is...

An owl, a spider

An owl hoots in the towers of Afrasiab; a spider spins her web in the palace of the Caesars. –Old Persian poem recited by Mehmet after the conquest of Constantinople

Life

Life is a moderately good play with a badly written third act. –Truman Capote

Freedom

The freedom the masses crave is not freedom of self-expression and self-realization, but freedom from the intolerable burden of an autonomous existence — freedom from the burden of free choice. … (Elsewhere: “the intellectual sterility and emotional monotony of...