- WIST is my personal collection of quotations, curated for thought, amusement, turn of phrase, historical significance, or sometimes just (often-unintentional) irony.
WIST currently holds 19,777 quotations by 3,081 authors. Please feel free to browse and borrow.
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Author Cloud
Aristotle • Asimov, Isaac • Bacon, Francis • Bible • Bierce, Ambrose • Billings, Josh • Butcher, Jim • Chesterfield (Lord) • Chesterton, Gilbert Keith • Churchill, Winston • Cicero, Marcus Tullius • Einstein, Albert • Eisenhower, Dwight David • Emerson, Ralph Waldo • Franklin, Benjamin • Fuller, Thomas (1654) • Gaiman, Neil • Galbraith, John Kenneth • Gandhi, Mohandas • Hazlitt, William • Heinlein, Robert A. • Hoffer, Eric • Homer • Huxley, Aldous • Ingersoll, Robert Green • Jefferson, Thomas • Johnson, Samuel • Kennedy, John F. • King, Martin Luther • La Rochefoucauld, Francois • Lewis, C.S. • Lincoln, Abraham • Martial • Mencken, H.L. • Orwell, George • Pratchett, Terry • Roosevelt, Eleanor • Roosevelt, Theodore • Russell, Bertrand • Shakespeare, William • Shaw, George Bernard • Sophocles • Tolkien, J.R.R. • Twain, Mark • Wilde, Oscar- Only the 45 most quoted authors are shown above. Full author list.
Most Quoted Authors
Topic Cloud
action age America author beauty belief change character courage death democracy education ego error evil faith fear freedom future God government happiness history human nature humanity integrity liberty life love morality perspective politics power progress reality religion science society success truth virtue war wealth wisdom writing- I've been adding topics since 2014, so not all quotes have been given one. Full topic list.
Popular Quotables
- “Wealth and Poverty,” speech, National… (10,369)
- Agamemnon, ll. 175-183 [tr. Johnston (2007)] (6,712)
- “The Lesson for Today,” A Witness Tree (1942) (6,278)
- “The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933) (5,685)
- Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962) (4,970)
- “Tips for Teens,” Social Studies (1981) (4,878)
- Letter to Clara Rilke (1 Jan 1907) (4,655)
- “On The Conduct of Life” (1822) (4,637)
- Republic, Book 1, 347c (4,307)
- “A Cult of Ignorance,” Newsweek (21 Jan 1980) (4,303)
Recent Feedback
- More quotes by Cicero, Marcus Tullius on The Problems of Philosophy, ch. 2 “The Existence of Matter” (1912)
- More quotes by Cicero, Marcus Tullius on Discourse on Method [Discours de la méthode], Part 2 (1637) [tr. Cottingham, Stoothoff (1985)]
- More quotes by Cicero, Marcus Tullius on The Imitation of Christ, Book 3, ch. 12, sec. 2 (c. 1418)
- More quotes by Cicero, Marcus Tullius on Heauton Timoroumenos [The Self-Tormentor], Act 4, sc. 5, l. 48 (l. 796)
- om on “Reflections on Monogamy,” Prejudices (1919-27)
- More quotes by Bullock, Christopher on Letter to Jean-Baptiste Leroy (13 Nov 1789)
- More quotes by Aristotle on The Iliad [Ἰλιάς], Book 9, l. 63ff (9.63-64) [Nestor] (c. 750 BC) [tr. Pope (1715-20)]
- More quotes by Ingersoll, Robert Green on Inaugural Address (20 Jan 1961) [with Ted Sorensen]
- More quotes by Ingersoll, Robert Green on Speech, Republican National Convention (7 Jun 1916)
- More quotes by Ingersoll, Robert Green on “In Our Youth Our Hearts Were Touched With Fire,” Memorial Day address, Keene, New Hampshire (30 May 1884)
Quotations by Borges, Jorge Luis
Any life, however long and complicated it may be, actually consists of a single moment — the moment when a man knows forever more who he is.
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) Argentine writer
“A Biography of Tadeo Isidoro Cruz”, The Aleph (1949) [tr. Hurley (1998)]
Alt. trans.: "Any life, no matter how long and complex it may be, is made up of a single moment -- the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is."
I found America the friendliest, most forgiving, and most generous nation I had ever visited. We South Americans tend to think of things in terms of convenience, whereas people in the United States approach things ethically. This — amateur Protestant that I am — I admired above all. It even helped me overlook skyscrapers, paper bags, television, plastics, and the unholy jungle of gadgets.
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) Argentine writer
“Autobiographical Notes,” The New Yorker (19 Sep 1970)
The flattery of posterity is not worth much more than contemporary flattery, which is worth nothing.
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) Argentine writer
“Dead Men’s Dialogue,” Dreamtigers (1960)
To die for a religion is easier than to live it absolutely.
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) Argentine writer
“Deutches Requiem” [tr. Palley (1958)]
Myth is at the beginning of literature, and also at its end.
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) Argentine writer
“Parable of Cervantes and Don Quixote” (Jan 1955)
Alt. trans. by A. Hurley, "In the beginning of literature there is myth, as there is also in the end of it."
Every novel is an ideal plane inserted into the realm of reality.
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) Argentine writer
“Partial Magic in the Quixote”, Labyrinths (1964)
I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) Argentine writer
“Poema de los Dones”, Dreamtigers [El Hacedor] (1960)
His many years had reduced and polished him the way water smooths and polishes a stone or generations of men polish a proverb.
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) Argentine writer
“The Man on the Threshold”, The Aleph (1949) [tr. Hurley (1998)]
See also Borges "The South [El Sur]," La Nación (1953): "On the floor, and hanging on to the bar, squatted an old man, immobile as an object. His years had reduced and polished him as water does a stone or the generations of men do a sentence." (Alt. trans. [Hurley (1998)]: "On the floor, curled against the bar, lay an old man, as motionless as an object. The many years had worn him away and polished him, as a stone is worn smooth by running water or a saying is polished by generations of mankind.")
To fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible god.
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) Argentine writer
“The Meeting in a Dream”, Other Inquisitions [Otras Inquisiciones] (1952) [tr. Simms (1964)]
While money cannot buy happiness, the advantages of poverty have been greatly exaggerated.
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) Argentine writer
(Attributed)
Heaven and hell seem out of proportion to me: the actions of men do not deserve so much.
[El infierno y el paraíso me parecen desproporcionados. Los actos de los hombres no merecen tanto.]
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) Argentine writer
(Attributed)
Quoted in Pilar Bravo and Mario Paoletti, ed., Borges Verbal (1999).
As Boileau said, “La réalité n’est pas toujours vraisemblable.” Reality is not always probable, or likely. But if you’re writing a story, you have to make it as plausible as you can, because if not, the reader’s imagination will reject it.
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) Argentine writer
Discussion published in the Columbia University Forum (1971)
(Source)
Often quoted without the first sentence, referring to Boileau, making it seem as if it is purely Borges' statement.
Being conservative is a way of being skeptic.
[Ser conservador es una forma de ser escéptico.]
The Falklands thing was a fight between two bald men over a comb.
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) Argentine writer
Quoted in Time (14 Feb 1983)
On the Falklands War.
Dictatorships foster oppression, dictatorships foster servitude, dictatorships foster cruelty; more abominable is the fact that they foster idiocy.
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) Argentine writer
Statement to the Argentine Society of Letters (c.1946)
