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Popular Quotables
- “Wealth and Poverty,” speech, National… (8,048)
- Agamemnon, ll. 175-183 [tr. Johnston (2007)] (6,090)
- “The Lesson for Today,” A Witness Tree (1942) (5,983)
- “The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933) (5,158)
- Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962) (4,896)
- “On The Conduct of Life” (1822) (4,389)
- “In Search of a Majority,” Speech,… (3,952)
- “Get a Knife, Get a Dog, but Get Rid of… (3,764)
- Letter to Clara Rilke (1 Jan 1907) (3,637)
- “A Cult of Ignorance,” Newsweek (21 Jan 1980) (3,542)
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Adams, John • 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 • Huxley, Aldous • Ingersoll, Robert Green • 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
- 24-Feb-21 - "Mobs and Education," Speech, Twenty-Eighth Congregational Society, Boston (16 Dec 1860) | WIST on “The Boston Mob,” speech, Antislavery Meeting, Boston (21 Oct 1855).
- 22-Feb-21 - Letter (1860) | WIST on Areopagitica: a Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing (1644).
- 21-Feb-21 - "What I Believe," Forum and Century (Oct 1930) | WIST on Memoirs of William Miller, quoted in Life (2 May 1955).
- 21-Feb-21 - "What I Believe," Forum and Century (Oct 1930) | WIST on Letter, unsent (1927).
- 20-Feb-21 - "What I Believe," Forum and Century (Oct 1930) | WIST on Remark (Winter 1927).
- 13-Feb-21 - tweet: the case of anti-cytokine therapy for Covid-19 – Med-stat.info on “The Divine Afflatus,” New York Evening Mail (16 Nov 1917).
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- "Mobs and Education," Speech, Twenty-Eighth Congregational Society, Boston (16 Dec 1860) | WIST: Phillips,...
- Letter (1860) | WIST: Andrew, John A.
- "What I Believe," Forum and Century (Oct 1930) | WIST: Einstein, Albert
- "What I Believe," Forum and Century (Oct 1930) | WIST: Einstein, Albert
- "What I Believe," Forum and Century (Oct 1930) | WIST: Einstein, Albert
Quotations by Publilius Syrus
It is a good thing to learn caution by the misfortunes of others.
Acquitting the guilty convicts the judge.
[Iudex damnatur cum nocens absolvitur.]
Publilius Syrus (d. 42 BC) Assyrian slave, writer, philosopher [less correctly Publius Syrus]
Sentences [Sententiae], #296
(Source)
Motto of the Edinburgh Review. Alt. trans.:There were multiple collections made of Publilius Syrus' Sententiae in Antiquity and the Middle Ages. This appears in all of them, but often with different line/sentence numbers, incl. #256 and #257.
- "When the guilty man is let off, the judge stands condemned."
- "The judge is condemned when the criminal is acquitted." [tr. Lyman (1856), #868]
He threatens many who injures one.
There is no fruit which is not bitter before it is ripe.
The miser is as much in want of that which he has, as of that which he has not.
The bow too tensely strung is easily broken.
In quarreling, the truth is always lost.
Never thrust your sickle into another’s corn.
Debt is the slavery of the free.
An angry man is again angry with himself when he returns to reason.
How unhappy is he who cannot forgive himself.
Wine has drowned more than the sea.
He is free from danger who, even when safe, is on his guard.
He doubly benefits the needy who gives quickly.
[Inopi beneficium bis dat, qui dat celeriter.]
To do two things at once is to do neither.
A small loan makes a debtor; a great one, an enemy.
We are interested in others when they are interested in us.
What greater evil could you wish a miser than a long life?
A good reputation is more valuable than money.
[Honesta fama melior pecunia est.]
To spare the guilty is to injure the innocent.
He who helps the guilty, shares the crime.
Consult your conscience, rather than popular opinion.
Patience is the cure for every sorrow.
Whatever you can lose, reckon of no account.
Pain will force even the truthful to speak falsely.
Many consult their reputation; but few their conscience.
What is left when honor is lost?
Fortune is like glass — the brighter the glitter, the more easily broken.
[Fortuna uitrea est: tum cum splendet frangitur.]
There are some remedies worse than the disease.
A cock has great influence on his own dunghill.
[In sterculino plurimum gallus potest.]
Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm.
[In tranquillo esse quisque gubernator potest.]
The madman thinks the rest of the world crazy.
Practice is the best of all instructors.
He who is bent on doing evil can never want occasion.
Never find your delight in another’s misfortune.
It is a bad plan that admits of no modification.
An orator’s life is more convincing than his eloquence.
A rolling stone gathers no moss.
Nothing can be done at once hastily and prudently.
We desire nothing so much as what we ought not to have.
No man is happy who does not think himself so.
Don’t consider how many you can please, but whom.
How long is life to the wretched, how short for the happy!
Every day should be passed as if it were to be our last.
A timid man sees dangers that do not exist.
Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it.
You are eloquent enough if truth speaks through you.
Speak well of your friend in public, admonish him in secret.
Whom Fortune wishes to destroy she first makes mad.
[Stultum facit fortuna, quem vult perdere.]
Suspicion begets suspicion.
It is a consolation to the wretched to have companions in misery.
When we speak evil of others, we generally condemn ourselves.