- WIST is my personal collection of quotations, curated for thought, amusement, turn of phrase, historical significance, or sometimes just (often-unintentional) irony.
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Popular Quotables
- “Wealth and Poverty,” speech, National… (7,885)
- Agamemnon, ll. 175-183 [tr. Johnston (2007)] (6,010)
- “The Lesson for Today,” A Witness Tree (1942) (5,941)
- “The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933) (5,106)
- Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962) (4,886)
- “On The Conduct of Life” (1822) (4,265)
- “In Search of a Majority,” Speech,… (3,929)
- “Get a Knife, Get a Dog, but Get Rid of… (3,750)
- Letter to Clara Rilke (1 Jan 1907) (3,572)
- “A Cult of Ignorance,” Newsweek (21 Jan 1980) (3,452)
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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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- 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).
- 4-Jan-21 - Doing the Numbers, 12/2020 | WIST on “The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933).
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Quotations by Menen, Aubrey
His view of war — and he had seen a great deal of it — was that a general made as many blunders as he fought battles, but, by the grace of the gods, the opposing generals’ blunders were sometimes worse.
Men of all races have always sought for a convincing explanation of their own astonishing excellence and they have frequently found what they were looking for.
Aubrey Menen (1912-1989) English writer
Dead Man in the Silver Market, ch. 1, opening lines (1954)
(Source)
There are three things which are real: God, human folly, and laughter. Since the first two pass our comprehension, we must do what we can with the third.
The essence of success is that it is never necessary to think of a new idea oneself. It is far better to wait until somebody else does it, and then to copy him in every detail, except his mistakes.
Aubrey Menen (1912-1989) English writer
The Abode of Love, Part 3, “The Random Wooings” (1956)
(Source)
That is the whole trouble with being a heretic. One must usually think out everything for oneself.
It is a mark of genius not to astonish but to be astonished.
After titanic studies he was satisfied that a thorough knowledge of the past could lead a profound scholar to predict the future course of history with greater accuracy, provided that it did not turn out quite differently.
