- WIST is my personal collection of quotations, curated for thought, amusement, turn of phrase, historical significance, or sometimes just (often-unintentional) irony.
WIST currently holds 19,627 quotations by 3,057 authors. Please feel free to browse and borrow.
Quote Search
Authors
Author Cloud
Aristotle • Asimov, Isaac • 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 • Homer • Huxley, Aldous • Ingersoll, Robert Green • Jefferson, Thomas • Johnson, Samuel • Kennedy, John F. • King, Martin Luther • La Rochefoucauld, Francois • Lewis, C.S. • Lincoln, Abraham • Martial • Mencken, H.L. • Orwell, George • Pratchett, Terry • Roosevelt, Eleanor • Roosevelt, Theodore • Russell, Bertrand • Shakespeare, William • Shaw, George Bernard • Sophocles • Tolkien, J.R.R. • Twain, Mark • Wilde, Oscar- Only the 45 most quoted authors are shown above. Full author list.
Most Quoted Authors
Topic Cloud
action age America author beauty belief change character courage death democracy education ego error evil faith fear freedom future God government happiness history human nature humanity integrity liberty life love morality perspective politics power progress reality religion science society success truth virtue war wealth wisdom writing- I've been adding topics since 2014, so not all quotes have been given one. Full topic list.
Popular Quotables
- “Wealth and Poverty,” speech, National… (9,987)
- Agamemnon, ll. 175-183 [tr. Johnston (2007)] (6,674)
- “The Lesson for Today,” A Witness Tree (1942) (6,258)
- “The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933) (5,637)
- Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962) (4,969)
- “Tips for Teens,” Social Studies (1981) (4,812)
- “On The Conduct of Life” (1822) (4,634)
- Letter to Clara Rilke (1 Jan 1907) (4,628)
- “A Cult of Ignorance,” Newsweek (21 Jan 1980) (4,248)
- “In Search of a Majority,” Speech,… (4,150)
Recent Feedback
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Our debt to tradition through reading and conversation is so massive, our protest or private addition so rare and insignificant, — and this commonly on the ground of other reading or hearing, — that, in a large sense, one would say there is no pure originality. All minds quote. Old and new make the warp and woof of every moment. There is no threat that is not a twist of these two strands. By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Quotation and Originality,” Letters and Social Aims (1876)
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