Joseph Roux on quotations

We call that person who has lost his father, an orphan; and a widower that man who has lost his wife. But that man who has known the immense unhappiness of losing a friend, by what name do we call him? Here every language is silent and holds its peace in impotence.

Science is for those who learn; poetry, for those who know.

Experience comprises illusions lost, rather than wisdom gained.

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

Oscar Wilde1854–1900De Profundis (1897)

A witty saying proves nothing.

Voltaire1694–1778Le dîner du comte de Boulainvilliers (1767): Deuxième Entretien

I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.

Ralph Waldo Emerson1803–1882May 1849