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Popular Quotables
- “Wealth and Poverty,” speech, National… (7,896)
- Agamemnon, ll. 175-183 [tr. Johnston (2007)] (6,023)
- “The Lesson for Today,” A Witness Tree (1942) (5,947)
- “The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933) (5,110)
- Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962) (4,889)
- “On The Conduct of Life” (1822) (4,281)
- “In Search of a Majority,” Speech,… (3,930)
- “Get a Knife, Get a Dog, but Get Rid of… (3,751)
- Letter to Clara Rilke (1 Jan 1907) (3,589)
- “A Cult of Ignorance,” Newsweek (21 Jan 1980) (3,468)
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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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- 18-Jan-21 - "The Christian Way of Life in Human Relations," speech, General Assembly fo the National Council of Churches, St Louis (4 Dec 1957) | WIST on Letter from Birmingham Jail (16 Apr 1963).
- 8-Jan-21 - ***Dave Does the Blog on Speech to the electors of Bristol (3 Nov 1774).
- 4-Jan-21 - Doing the Numbers, 12/2020 | WIST on Republic, Book 1, 347c.
- 4-Jan-21 - Doing the Numbers, 12/2020 | WIST on “On The Conduct of Life” (1822).
- 4-Jan-21 - Doing the Numbers, 12/2020 | WIST on Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962).
- 4-Jan-21 - Doing the Numbers, 12/2020 | WIST on Letter to Clara Rilke (1 Jan 1907).
Quotations by Byron, George Gordon, Lord
Who would be free themselves must strike the blow.
Christians have burnt each other, quite persuaded
That all the Apostles would have done as they did.
All tragedies are finish’d by a death,
All comedies are ended by a marriage;
The future states of both are left to faith.
I wish men to be free
As much from mobs as kings — from you as me.
And I will war, at least in words (and–should
My chance so happen–deeds), with all who war
With Thought ….
Many is in part divine,
A troubled stream from a pure source.
She walks in beauty like the night,
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes.
So, we’ll go no more a-roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself have rest.Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we’ll go no more a-roving
By the light of the moon.
He who is only just is cruel. Who on earth could live were all judged justly?
Always laugh when you can; it is cheap medicine.
RICHARD PORSON: Yes, Mr. Southey is indeed a wonderful poet. He will be read when Homer and Virgil are forgotten.
BYRON: But not till then.
Mark where his carnage and his conquests cease!
He makes a solitude, and calls it — peace.George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824) English poet
Bride of Abydos, Canto 2, st. 20 (1813)
See Tacitus.
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar’
I love not Man the less, but Nature more.
On with the dance! let joy be unconfined;
No sleep till morn, when youth and pleasure meet
To chase the glowing hours with flying feet.
And if I laugh at any mortal thing,
‘Tis that I may not weep.
I may stand alone,
But would not change my free thoughts for a throne.
Our hair
Grows grizzled, and we are not what we were.
Ready money is Aladdin’s lamp.
How little do we know that which we are!
How less what we may be!
Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter
Sermons and soda water the day after.
‘Tis sweet to hear the watch-dog’s honest bark
Bay deep-mouth’d welcome as we draw near home;
‘Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark
Our coming, and look brighter when we come.
Pleasure’s a sin, and sometimes sin’s a pleasure.
Of all the horrid, hideous notes of woe,
Sadder than owl songs or the midnight blast,
Is that portentous phrase, “I told you so.”
Man is a carnivorous production,
And must have meals, at least one meal a day;
He cannot live, like woodcocks, upon suction,
But, like the shark and tiger, must have prey.Although his anatomical construction
Bears vegetables, in a grumbling way,
Your laboring people think beyond all question,
Beef, veal, and mutton better for digestion.
Man, being reasonable, must get drunk;
The best of life is but intoxication;
Glory, the grape, love, gold, in these are sunk
The hopes of all men, and of every nation.
‘Twas blow for blow, disputing inch by inch,
For one would not retreat, nor t’other flinch.
You have greatly ventured, but all must do so who would greatly win.
George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824) English poet
Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice, Act 1, sc. 1 (1821)
(Source)
He who is only just is cruel; who
Upon the earth would live were all judged justly?
What’s drinking?
A mere pause from thinking!
The busy have no time for tears.
Opinions are made to be changed — or how is truth to be got at?
We are all selfish and I no more trust myself than others with a good motive.