- 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.
- 17,167 quotes and counting ...
Quote Search
Authors
Topic Cloud
action age America argument belief change character courage death democracy education ego evil faith fear freedom future God government happiness history humanity integrity justice leadership liberty life love morality perspective politics poverty power reality religion science society success truth tyranny virtue war wealth wisdom writing- I've been adding topics/tags since 2014, so not all quotes have been given one. Full topic list.
WISTish
- * Visual quotes (graphics, memes) only
Admin
Popular Quotables
- “Wealth and Poverty,” speech, National… (6,311)
- “The Lesson for Today,” A Witness Tree (1942) (5,767)
- Agamemnon, ll. 175-183 [tr. Johnston (2007)] (5,606)
- Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962) (4,860)
- “The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933) (4,755)
- “On The Conduct of Life” (1822) (3,876)
- “In Search of a Majority,” Speech,… (3,778)
- “Get a Knife, Get a Dog, but Get Rid of… (3,643)
- “The Historian as Participant,” Daedalus… (3,050)
- “Hallowed Ground” (1825) (3,027)
Most Quoted Authors
Author Cloud
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
- 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).
- 1-May-20 - Quoted in The Observer (17 Mar 1985) | WIST on Robert J. Hanlon, “Hanlon’s Razor,” Murphy’s Law, Book Two (ed. A. Bloch) (1980).
- 1-May-20 - Grow, Grow – Traditional Iconoclast on Midrash Rabba, Bereshit 10:6.
Quotations by Kempton, Murray
Every now and then, in the course of great events, the elements of tradition and innovation ally themselves and each one’s weakness supplements the other and together they achieve the perfect debacle.
Murray Kempton (1917-1997) American journalist.
“The Genius of Mussolini,” New York Review of Books (7 Oct 1982)
(Source)
Reprinted in Rebellions, Perversities, and Main Events (1994).
There are things a man must not do even to save a nation.
Murray Kempton (1917-1997) American journalist.
“To Save a Nation,” America Comes of Age (1963)
A critic is someone who enters the battlefield after the war is over and shoots the wounded.
Murray Kempton (1917-1997) American journalist.
(Attributed)
Generally attributed to Kempton (though sometimes as being about editorial writers rather than critics) without specific citation. More on this quote here.
To say that an idea is fashionable is to say, I think, that it has been adulterated to a point where it is hardly an idea at all.
Murray Kempton (1917-1997) American journalist.
Part of Our Time, ch. 6 “The Day of the Locust” (1955)
(Source)
A political convention is just not a place where you come away with any trace of faith in human nature.
Murray Kempton (1917-1997) American journalist.
Column on the 1960 Republican National Convention, Chicago (28 Jul 1960)
(Source)
People are very romantic about these guys, but the only thing I’ve ever learned is that if you talk to gangsters long enough, you’ll find out they’re just as bad as respectable people.
Murray Kempton (1917-1997) American journalist.
In Ron Rosenbaum, The Secret Parts of Fortune, “The Connoisseur of Scoundrels” (2000)
(Source)
