“Have you noticed … there is never any third act in a nightmare? They bring you to a climax of terror and then leave you there. They are the work of poor dramatists.” — Max Beerbohm

“To be sure, the dog is loyal. But why, on that account, should we take him as an example? He is loyal to men, not to other dogs.” — Karl Kraus

“The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.” — Emerson

“Pins have been the means of saving many lives, through people not swallowing them.” — Theo Johnson, Personal Recollections of the Zoo, 1891

“Fish die belly upward, and rise to the surface. It’s their way of falling.” — André Gide, Journals

(Thanks, Macari.)

“My favorite poem is the one that starts ‘Thirty days hath September’ because it actually tells you something.” — Groucho

“I hate Twitter. It’s like a state surveillance agency run by gullible volunteers.” — Stewart Lee

We do not know what thoughts stirred in the mind of the last of the mastodons, but we can take it that they were nothing very remarkable. It is hardly likely that the last man will have the mind of a Goethe. He will die, and that will be the last stage of human progress.

— Anatole France, Under the Rose, 1925

“It was high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, ‘always do what you are afraid to do.”” — Emerson

“Never go out to meet trouble. If you will just sit still, nine cases out of ten someone will intercept it before it reaches you.” — Calvin Coolidge