Futility Closet

“It will only encourage the lower classes to move about.” — The Duke of Wellington, opposing railways

“After I’m dead I’d rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one.” — Cato the Elder

“At least I have the modesty to admit that lack of modesty is one of my failings.” — Hector Berlioz

“I am tired of all this thing called science. … We have spent millions in that sort of thing for the last few years, and it is time it should be stopped.”

– Pennsylvania senator Simon Cameron, opposing funding for the Smithsonian Institution, 1861

“Age is a high price to pay for maturity.” — Tom Stoppard

“Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.” — George Eliot

“We praise or blame as one or the other affords more opportunity for exhibiting our power of judgment.” — Nietzsche

“Everyone complains of his memory, and no one complains of his judgment.” — La Rochefoucauld

“It is astonishing that there should still be found today people who do not believe that there are witches.” — Henry Bouget, 1602

“I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others.” — Marcus Aurelius