- WIST is my personal collection of quotations, curated for thought, amusement, turn of phrase, historical significance, or sometimes just (often-unintentional) irony.Please feel free to browse and borrow.
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Popular Quotables
- “The Lesson for Today,” A Witness Tree (1942) (5,550)
- “Wealth and Poverty,” speech, National… (5,466)
- Agamemnon, ll. 175-183 [tr. Johnston (2007)] (5,372)
- Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962) (4,798)
- “The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933) (4,284)
- “In Search of a Majority,” Speech,… (3,628)
- “Get a Knife, Get a Dog, but Get Rid of… (3,434)
- “Hallowed Ground” (1825) (2,926)
- “On The Conduct of Life” (1822) (2,900)
- “The Historian as Participant,” Daedalus… (2,701)
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Adams, John • Bacon, Francis • Bible • Bierce, Ambrose • Billings, Josh • Butcher, Jim • Chesterton, Gilbert Keith • Churchill, Winston • Einstein, Albert • Eisenhower, Dwight David • Emerson, Ralph Waldo • Franklin, Benjamin • Fuller, Thomas (1654) • Gaiman, Neil • Galbraith, John Kenneth • Gandhi, Mohandas • Goethe, Johann von • Hazlitt, William • Heinlein, Robert A. • Hoffer, Eric • Huxley, Aldous • Ingersoll, Robert Green • James, William • 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 • Stevenson, Adlai • Stevenson, Robert Louis • Twain, Mark • Watterson, Bill • Wilde, Oscar- Only the 45 most quoted authors are shown above. Full author list.
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- 16-Aug-19 - Dave on About WIST.
- 13-Aug-19 - Mike Hardy on About WIST.
- 17-Jul-19 - Samuel Missal on Armistice Day address, Boston (11 Nov 1948).
- 24-May-19 - Dave on Inaugural Address (20 Jan 1989).
- 16-May-19 - Mike Gaudioso on Inaugural Address (20 Jan 1989).
- 23-Apr-19 - Dave on Letter to Baron von Stein, Dammartin le St. Père (7 Jan 1814).
Quotations by Brown, Rita Mae
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)
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)
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)
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.
If the world were a logical place, men would ride side-saddle.
Rita Mae Brown (b. 1944) American author, playwright
Sudden Death (1983)
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)
