Coffee House Quotes

“Coffeehouses were centers of self-education, literary and philosophical speculation, commercial innovation, and, in some cases, political fermentation. But above all they were clearinghouses for news and gossip, linked by the circulation of customers, publications, and information from one establishment to the next. Collectively, Europe's coffeehouses functioned as the Internet of the Age of Reason.”
― Tom Standage, A History of the World in 6 Glasses

“We think that history is created in the big things, in the big events, but history is also created in the small things that we do every day, in the personal choices we make— to think or not to think, to hold our tongues or to speak up, to act or not to act. Our actions have a ripple effect on those around us. Every time we conform or don't, we're shaping the world into our vision or someone else's vision. The universe isn't made up of atoms it's made up of stories, and these stories are shaped in college campuses and coffee houses around the country, not just in boardrooms and government buildings.”
― Sharanya Haridas

“Where else but a coffee-house could you pay a couple dollars for a drink, then fritter away four hours splayed across a couch, reading a book?”
― Taylor Clark, Starbucked: A Double Tall Tale of Caffeine, Commerce, and Culture

“The stale air, the incessant, inane clatter of the billiard balls, the perpetual hacking cough of a half-blind journalist opposite me, the spindle-shanked infantry officer, alternately picking his nose or combing his moustache with nicotine-stained fingers in front of a small pocket-mirror, the seething clump of vile, sweaty, gabbling Italians round the card table in the corner, now rapping their knuckles and squawking as they played their trumps, now hawking up a lump of phlegm and spewing it onto the floor: all that was bad enough, but to see it reflected two, three times over in the mirrors on the walls! It slowly sucked the blood out of my veins.”
― Gustav Meyrink, The Golem

“I was directed by the coachman to by far the most splendid temperance coffee-house I had ever seen: but it seemed too fine a lodging-house for harbouring the more characteristic English and I had not crossed the Border to see cosmopolites...”
― Hugh Miller, First Impressions of England and its People