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Popular Quotables
- “Wealth and Poverty,” speech, National… (6,594)
- “The Lesson for Today,” A Witness Tree (1942) (5,798)
- Agamemnon, ll. 175-183 [tr. Johnston (2007)] (5,686)
- Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962) (4,869)
- “The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933) (4,807)
- “On The Conduct of Life” (1822) (3,905)
- “In Search of a Majority,” Speech,… (3,808)
- “Get a Knife, Get a Dog, but Get Rid of… (3,662)
- “The Historian as Participant,” Daedalus… (3,057)
- “Hallowed Ground” (1825) (3,056)
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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.
Recent Feedback
- 6-Jul-20 - (Attributed) | WIST on Quoted in Plutarch, Parallel Lives, “The Life of Solon,” sec. 18.5 [tr. Perrin (1914)].
- 6-Jul-20 - Agamemnon, l. 928 | WIST on Oedipus Rex, l. 1529 (concluding words).
- 20-May-20 - Introduction to the Art of Thinking, ch. 1, "Friendship" (1761) | WIST on John 15:13 (KJV).
- 18-May-20 - Chamblee54 on Clouds, ll. 998-999 (423 BC) [tr. Athenian Soc. (1912)].
- 18-May-20 - Chamblee54 on Mills E. Godwin, Governor of Virginia (Dec 1966).
- 11-May-20 - Chamblee54 on “Indian Summer,” Enough Rope (1926).
Quotations by George, Henry
The fact is that the work which improves the condition of mankind, the work which extends knowledge and increases power and enriches literature, and elevates thought, is not done to secure a living. It is not the work of slaves, driven to their task either by the lash of a master or by animal necessities. It is the work of men who perform it for their own sake, and not that they may get more to eat or drink, or wear, or display. In a state of society where want is abolished, work of this sort could be enormously increased.
Henry George (1839-1897) American economist
Progress and Poverty (1879)
What has destroyed every previous civilization has been the tendency to the unequal distribution of wealth and power. This same tendency, operating with increasing force, is observable in our civilization to-day, showing itself in every progressive community, and with greater intensity the more progressive the community. Wages and interest tend constantly to fall, rent to rise, the rich to become very much richer, the poor to become more helpless and hopeless, and the middle class to be swept away.
Henry George (1839-1897) American economist
Progress and Poverty, “How Modern Civilization May Decline” (1879)
Yet there is still this difference between man and all other animals — he is the only animal whose desires increase as they are fed; the only animal that is never satisfied.
There is danger in reckless change, but greater danger in blind conservatism.
Henry George (1839-1897) American economist
Social Problems, ch. 1 (1883)
At the bottom of every social problem we will find a social wrong.
Henry George (1839-1897) American economist
Social Problems, ch. 1 (1883)
Our two great political parties have really nothing more to propose than the keeping or the taking of the offices from the other party.
Henry George (1839-1897) American economist
Social Problems, ch. 2 (1883)
He who sees the truth, let him proclaim it, without asking who is for it or who is against it.
Henry George (1839-1897) American economist
The Land Question (1881)
