- WIST is my personal collection of quotations, curated for thought, amusement, turn of phrase, historical significance, or sometimes just (often-unintentional) irony.
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Authors
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, Lyndon • Johnson, Samuel • Kennedy, John F. • King, Martin Luther • La Rochefoucauld, Francois • Lewis, C.S. • Lincoln, Abraham • Mencken, H.L. • Orwell, George • Pratchett, Terry • Roosevelt, Eleanor • Roosevelt, Theodore • Russell, Bertrand • Seneca the Younger • Shakespeare, William • Shaw, George Bernard • Sophocles • 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… (9,864)
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- “The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933) (5,606)
- Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962) (4,965)
- “Tips for Teens,” Social Studies (1981) (4,781)
- “On The Conduct of Life” (1822) (4,628)
- Letter to Clara Rilke (1 Jan 1907) (4,617)
- “In Search of a Majority,” Speech,… (4,142)
- “A Cult of Ignorance,” Newsweek (21 Jan 1980) (4,128)
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Quotations by Brown, Rita Mae
I believe you are your work. Don’t trade the stuff of your life, time, for nothing more than dollars. That’s a rotten bargain.
Rita Mae Brown (b. 1944) American author, playwright
(Attributed)
Lead me not into temptation. I can find the way myself.
Rita Mae Brown (b. 1944) American author, playwright
(Attributed)
One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory.
Rita Mae Brown (b. 1944) American author, playwright
(Attributed)
A peacefulness follows any decision, even the wrong one.
Rita Mae Brown (b. 1944) American author, playwright
(Attributed)
About all you can do in life is be who you are. Some people will love you for you. Most will love you for what you can do for them, and some won’t like you at all.
Rita Mae Brown (b. 1944) American author, playwright
(Attributed)
A life of reaction is a life of slavery, intellectually and spiritually. One must fight for a life of action, not reaction.
Rita Mae Brown (b. 1944) American author, playwright
(Attributed)
If it weren’t for the last minute, nothing would get done.
Rita Mae Brown (b. 1944) American author, playwright
Bingo (1988)
(Source)
The phrase can actually be found prior to Brown's formulation (1, 2), but Brown appears to have been the first to popularize it, and it entered into much wider use after her.
Frequent variant: "If not for the last minute ...."
People who care for you inevitably become beautiful.
In art as in politics we must deal with people as they are, not as we wish them to be. Only by working with the real can you get closer to the ideal.
Rita Mae Brown (b. 1944) American author, playwright
In Her Day, Preface, “A Note to the Feminist Reader” (1976)
(Source)
Sorrow is how we learn to love. Your heart isn’t breaking. It hurts because it’s getting larger. The larger it gets, the more love it holds.
Morals are private. Decency is public.
Rita Mae Brown (b. 1944) American author, playwright
Starting from Scratch: A Different Kind of Writer’s Manual (1988)
As a woman, I find it very embarrassing to be in a meeting and realize I’m the only one in the room with balls.
Rita Mae Brown (b. 1944) American author, playwright
Starting from Scratch: A Different Kind of Writer’s Manual (1988)
(Source)
On working in the TV and film industry.
Language is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going.
Rita Mae Brown (b. 1944) American author, playwright
Starting from Scratch: A Different Kind of Writers’ Manual, Part 3, ch. 1 “Words as Separate Units of Consciousness” (1988)
(Source)
A deadline is negative inspiration. Still, it’s better than no inspiration at all.
Rita Mae Brown (b. 1944) American author, playwright
Starting from Scratch: A Different Kind of Writers’ Manual, Part 4 (1988)
(Source)
Moral passion without entertainment is propaganda, and entertainment without moral passion is television.
I have changed my definition of tragedy. I now think tragedy is not foul deeds done to a person (usually noble in some manner) but rather that tragedy is irresolvable conflict. Both sides/ideas are right.
Rita Mae Brown (b. 1944) American author, playwright
Starting from Scratch, Part 3 “The Work,” “Plot” (1989)
(Source)
Language exerts hidden power, like the moon on the tides.
Rita Mae Brown (b. 1944) American author, playwright
Starting from Scratch, Part 3 “The Work,” “The Passive Voice, or The Secret Agent” (1989)
(Source)
Remember, too, that you have the right to make mistakes. Exercise it. Good judgment comes from experience, and often experience comes from bad judgment.
Rita Mae Brown (b. 1944) American author, playwright
Starting from Scratch, Part 4 (1988)
(Source)
Brown popularized the phrase, but it had been expressed before. More information: Good Judgment Depends Mostly on Experience and Experience Usually Comes from Poor Judgment – Quote Investigator.
If the world were a logical place, men would ride side-saddle.
Rita Mae Brown (b. 1944) American author, playwright
Sudden Death (1983)
Sport strips away personality, letting the white bone of character shine through. Sport gives players an opportunity to know and test themselves.
I became a lesbian out of devout Christian charity. All those women out there are praying for a man and I gave them my share.
Rita Mae Brown (b. 1944) American author, playwright
Venus Envy (1993)
(Source)
Frequently paraphrased as: "My lesbianism is an act of Christian charity. All those women out there are praying for a man, and I'm giving them my share."
The reward for conformity was that everyone liked you but yourself.
Rita Mae Brown (b. 1944) American author, playwright
Venus Envy, ch. 15 (1993)
(Source)
Often paraphrased in the present tense: "The reward for conformity is that everyone likes you but yourself."
Normal is the average of deviance.
I also think living in the country gives you faith. All you have to do is get up and look at the mountains and look at the other animals to realize that your problems are mostly made up or exacerbated by humans. But human life isn’t necessarily life. There’s so much more out there.
I ask you not to hate people who treat you badly. … This is easier to write than it is to live but there are ignorant people. Only a few are truly malicious. Hate is a poison. It can spread through your system. Forgive them if you can. Forget them if you must.
Rita Mae Brown (b. 1944) American author, playwright
Interview in OutSmart magazine (Jan 1998)
(Source)
The only queer people are those who don’t love anybody.
Rita Mae Brown (b. 1944) American author, playwright
Opening Speech, Gay Olympics, San Francisco (28 Aug 1982)
