- 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… (8,037)
- Agamemnon, ll. 175-183 [tr. Johnston (2007)] (6,087)
- “The Lesson for Today,” A Witness Tree (1942) (5,980)
- “The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933) (5,155)
- Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962) (4,895)
- “On The Conduct of Life” (1822) (4,383)
- “In Search of a Majority,” Speech,… (3,950)
- “Get a Knife, Get a Dog, but Get Rid of… (3,764)
- Letter to Clara Rilke (1 Jan 1907) (3,634)
- “A Cult of Ignorance,” Newsweek (21 Jan 1980) (3,540)
Most Quoted Authors
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Adams, John • Bacon, Francis • Bible • Bierce, Ambrose • Billings, Josh • Butcher, Jim • Chesterfield (Lord) • 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 • 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
- 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).
Recent Trackbacks
- "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 Roux, Joseph
How many sacrifice honor, a necessity, to glory, a luxury?
Joseph Roux (1834-1886) French Catholic priest
Meditations of a Parish Priest: Thoughts, ch. 4, #38 (1886)
(Source)
Reason! reason! … As much as you like; but beware of thinking that it answers to everything, suffices for everything, satisfies everything. This mother loses her child: will reason comfort her? Does cool reason counsel the inspired poet, the heroic warrior, the lover? Reason guides but a small part of man, and that the least interesting. The rest obeys feeling, true or false, and passion, good or bad.
Joseph Roux (1834-1886) French Catholic priest
Meditations of a Parish Priest: Thoughts, ch. 4, #95 (1886)
(Source)
Since unhappiness excites interest, many, in order to render themselves interesting, feign unhappiness.
Joseph Roux (1834-1886) French Catholic priest
Meditations of a Parish Priest: Thoughts, ch. 5, #24 (1886)
(Source)
A fine quotation is a diamond on the finger of a man of wit, and a pebble in the hand of a fool.
Joseph Roux (1834-1886) French Catholic priest
Meditations of a Parish Priest: Thoughts, Part 1, #74 (1886)
(Source)
Our experience is composed rather of illusions lost than of wisdom acquired.
Joseph Roux (1834-1886) French Catholic priest
Meditations of a Parish Priest: Thoughts, Part 4, #28 [tr. Hapgood (1886)]
The folly which we might have ourselves committed is the one which we are least ready to pardon in another.
Joseph Roux (1834-1886) French Catholic priest
Meditations of a Parish Priest: Thoughts, Part 4, #85 (1886)
(Source)
It is a very rare thing for a man of talent to succeed by his talent.
Joseph Roux (1834-1886) French Catholic priest
Meditations of a Parish Priest: Thoughts, Part 4, #88 (1886)
(Source)
Say nothing good of yourself, you will be distrusted; say nothing bad of yourself, you will be taken at your word.
Joseph Roux (1834-1886) French Catholic priest
Meditations of a Parish Priest: Thoughts, Part 5 “Joy, Suffering, Fortune,” #22 (1886) [tr. Hapgood]
(Source)
The happiness which is lacking makes one think even the happiness one has unbearable.
Joseph Roux (1834-1886) French Catholic priest
Meditations of a Parish Priest: Thoughts, Part 5, #37 (1886)
(Source)
We call that person who has lost his father, an orphan; and a widower that man who has lost his wife. But that man who has known the immense unhappiness of losing a friend, by what name do we call him? Here every language is silent and holds its peace in impotence.
Joseph Roux (1834-1886) French Catholic priest
Meditations of a Parish Priest: Thoughts, Part 9, #54 (1886)
(Source)
Lofty mountains are full of springs; great hearts are full of tears.
Joseph Roux (1834-1886) French Catholic priest
Meditations of a Parish Priest, 5.56 [tr. Hapgood (1886)]
Solitude vivifies; isolation kills.
Joseph Roux (1834-1886) French Catholic priest
Meditations of a Parish Priest, 5.60 [tr. Hapgood (1886)]
