- 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.
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Popular Quotables
- “Wealth and Poverty,” speech, National… (5,986)
- “The Lesson for Today,” A Witness Tree (1942) (5,725)
- Agamemnon, ll. 175-183 [tr. Johnston (2007)] (5,517)
- Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962) (4,850)
- “The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933) (4,609)
- “On The Conduct of Life” (1822) (3,810)
- “In Search of a Majority,” Speech,… (3,753)
- “Get a Knife, Get a Dog, but Get Rid of… (3,617)
- “The Historian as Participant,” Daedalus… (3,036)
- “Hallowed Ground” (1825) (3,002)
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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
- 3-Apr-20 - The Peter Principle (1969) | WIST on The Observer (1788).
- 3-Apr-20 - Peter's Almanac, "3 December" (1982) | WIST on (Attributed).
- 31-Mar-20 - Dave on “As O. O. McIntyre Sees It,” syndicated column (2 Jan 1937).
- 24-Mar-20 - Scott on “As O. O. McIntyre Sees It,” syndicated column (2 Jan 1937).
- 20-Mar-20 - Post, alt.fan.pratchett (14 Jun 1998) | WIST on (Attributed).
- 16-Mar-20 - Quoted in Washington Post (23 Dec 1973) | WIST on (Attributed).
Quotations by Parker, Dorothy
Love is like quicksilver in the hand, Sylvie. Leave the fingers open and it stays in the palm; clutch it, and it darts away.
Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) American writer
“Advice to the Little Peyton Girl,” Modern Story (Oct 1935)
Full text.
I think, no matter where you be,
You’ll hold me in your memory
And keep my image, there without me,
By telling later loves about me.Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) American writer
“But Not Forgotten”
Now I know the things I know,
And do the things I do;
and if you do not like me so,
To hell, my love, with you!Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) American writer
“Indian Summer,” Enough Rope (1926)
Four be the things I am wiser to know:
Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.Four be the things I’d been better without:
Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.Three be the things I shall never attain:
Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.Three be the things I shall have till I die:
Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.
Razors pain you,
Rivers are damp,
Acids stain you,
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful,
Nooses give,
Gas smells awful.
You might as well live.Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) American writer
“Résumé” (1926)
Oh, let it be a night of lyric rain
And singing breezes, when my bell is tolled.
I have so loved the rain that I would hold
Last in my ears its friendly, dim refrain.
I might repeat to myself slowly and soothingly, a list of quotations beautiful from minds profound — if I can remember any of the damn things.
Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) American writer
“The Little Hours,” Here Lies (1939)
This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.
Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) American writer
(Attributed)
Quoted in The Algonquin Wits (1968) ed. by Robert E. Drennan. The novel was Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.
I’d like to have money. And I’d like to be a good writer. These two can come together, and I hope they will, but if that’s too adorable, I’d rather have the money.
Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) American writer
(Attributed)
If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.
Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) American writer
(Attributed)
This is on me.
Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) American writer
(Attributed)
Proposed epitaph for herself. In Robert E. Drennan, ed., "Dorothy Parker," The Algonquin Wits (1968)
It’s not the tragedies that kill us. It’s the messes.
Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) American writer
(Attributed)
Recalled at Parker's funeral by Lillian Hellman.
I’d love to have a martini,
Two at the very most.
With three I’m under the table,
With four I’m under my host.Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) American writer
(Attributed)
Variant:I like to have a Martini
But only two at the most,
After three I'm under the table,
After four I'm under my host.
I hate writing. I love having written.
Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) American writer
(Attributed)
Take me or leave me; or, as in the usual order of things, both.
Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) American writer
New Yorker (4 Feb 1928)
Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Roumania.Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) American writer
Not So Deep as a Well, “Comment” (1937)
Brevity is the soul of lingerie.
Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) American writer
Caption, Vogue (1916)
Quoted and attributed in Alexander Woollcott, While Rome Burns (1934). Modeled after Shakespeare.
You can’t teach an old dogma new tricks.
Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) American writer
In Robert E. Drennan, ed., “Dorothy Parker,” The Algonquin Wits (1968)
Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.
Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) American writer
Interview, Writers at Work, ed. Malcolm Cowley (1958)
