- 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 19,779 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.
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action age America 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 pride 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… (10,371)
- 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) (5,686)
- 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 (4,308)
- “A Cult of Ignorance,” Newsweek (21 Jan 1980) (4,304)
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 Carlyle, Thomas
The Courage we desire and prize is not the Courage to die decently, but to live manfully.
Rich as we are in Biography, a well-written Life is almost as rare as a well-spent one.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian
“Jean Paul Friedrich Richter,” Edinburgh Review #91, Art. 7 (Jun-Oct 1827)
(Source)
A review of Heinich Döring, Jean Paul Friedrich Richter's Life, with a Sketch of his Works (1826).
The thoughts they had were the parents of the actions they did; their feelings were the parents of their thoughts.
The purse is any Highwayman’s who might meet me with a loaded pistol, but the Self is mine and God my Maker’s; it is not yours; and I will resist you to the death.
A man always is to be himself the judge of how much of his mind he will show to other men; even to those he would have work along with him. There are impertinent inquiries made: your rule is to leave the inquirer uninformed on that matter; not, if you can help it, misinformed; but precisely as dark as he was!
Self-deception once yielded to, all other deceptions follow naturally more and more.
Manhood begins when we have in any way made truce with Necessity; begins even when we have surrendered to Necessity, as the most part only do; but begins joyfully and hopefully only when we have reconciled ourselves to Necessity; and thus, in reality, triumphed over it, and felt that in Necessity we are free.
The tragedy of life is not so much what men suffer, but rather what they miss.
The block of granite which was an obstacle in the path of the weak, becomes a steppingstone in the path of the strong.
Our grand business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.
Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure that there is one rascal less in the world.
I don’t like to talk much with people who always agree with me. It is amusing to coquette with an echo for a little while, but one soon tires of it.
The best effect of any book is that it excites the reader to self-activity.
Every day that is born into the world comes like a burst of music, and rings itself all the way through; and thou shalt make of it a dance, a dirge, or a grand life-march as thou wilt.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian
(Attributed)
Variant: "Every day that is born into the world comes like a burst of music and rings itself the way through, and you make of it a dance, a dirge, or a life-march, as thou wilt."
The earliest reference I can find to this is its quotation in (or perhaps adjacent to) Kate W. Hamilton, "Ariel Seaton's Rainy Day," The Ladies' Repository (Jan 1868).
His religion at best is an anxious wish — like that of Rabelais, a great Perhaps.
In every object there is inexhaustible meaning; the eye sees in it what the eye brings means of seeing.
The fine arts once divorcing themselves from truth are quite certain to fall mad, if they do not die.
The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green.
Every new opinion, at its starting, is precisely in a minority of one.
The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none.
Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man; but for one man who can stand prosperity there are a hundred that will stand adversity.
No iron chain, or outward force of any kind, could ever compel the soul of man to believe or disbelieve.
Democracy means despair of ever finding any heroes to govern you, and contentedly putting up with the want of them.
Tell a man he is brave, and you help him to become so.
Every noble work is at first impossible.
With Stupidity and sound Digestion man may front much.
Conviction … is worthless until it converts itself into Conduct.
Hast thou not Greek enough to understand thus much: the end of Man is an Action and not a Thought, though it were of the noblest.
The end of Man is an Action and not a Thought, though it were the noblest.
Trust not the heart of that man for whom old clothes are not venerable.
I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.
O poor mortals, how ye make this earth bitter for each other.
Can there be a more horrible object in existence than an eloquent man not speaking the truth?
The beginning of all is to have done with falsity — to eschew falsity as death eternal.
I grow daily to honor facts more and more, and theory less and less.
The last quality, perseverance, I particularly respect: it is the very hinge of all virtues. — On looking over the world, the cause of nine parts in ten of the lamentable failures which occur in men’s undertakings & darken and degrade so much of their history, lies not in the want of talents or the will to use them, but in the vacillating and desultory mode of using them — in flying from object to object, in starting away at each little disgust, and thus applying the force which might conquer any one difficulty to a series of difficulties so large that no human force can conquer them. The smallest brook on earth, by continual running, has hollowed out for itself a considerable valley to flow in: the wildest tempest, by its occasional raging, over-turns a few cottages, uproots a few trees, and leaves after a short space no mark behind it. Commend me therefore to the Dutch virtue of perseverance! Without it all the rest are little better than fairy gold, which glitters in your purse, but when taken to the market proves to be — slate or cinders.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian
Letter to John Carlyle (15 Mar 1822)
(Source)
If Jesus Christ were to come today, people would not even crucify Him. They would ask Him to dinner, and hear what He had to say, and make fun of it.