Wit & Wisdom

“Money can’t buy happiness, but it can make you awfully comfortable while you’re being miserable.”

Author Clare Boothe Luce, quoted in the Associated Press

“Drugs have taught an entire generation of American kids the metric system.”

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

P.J. O’Rourke, quoted in the Montreal Gazette

“Nothing is so rewarding as a stubborn examination of the obvious.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes, quoted in The Denver Post

“Life is a gamble at terrible odds. If it were a bet, you would not take it.’’

Playwright Tom Stoppard, quoted in the San Jose Mercury News

“One of history’s most useful tasks is to bring home to us how keenly, honestly, and painfully past generations pursued aims that now seem to us wrong or disgraceful.”

Historian John Carey, quoted in The New York Review of Books

“The love of truth lies at the root of much humor.”

Author Robertson Davies, quoted in Forbes.com

“Ignorance allied with power is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.”

James Baldwin, quoted in HuffingtonPost.com