- 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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- 18,042 quotes and counting ...
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Popular Quotables
- “Wealth and Poverty,” speech, National… (8,033)
- Agamemnon, ll. 175-183 [tr. Johnston (2007)] (6,086)
- “The Lesson for Today,” A Witness Tree (1942) (5,972)
- “The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933) (5,154)
- Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962) (4,894)
- “On The Conduct of Life” (1822) (4,380)
- “In Search of a Majority,” Speech,… (3,949)
- “Get a Knife, Get a Dog, but Get Rid of… (3,763)
- Letter to Clara Rilke (1 Jan 1907) (3,634)
- “A Cult of Ignorance,” Newsweek (21 Jan 1980) (3,538)
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
Because the establishment proposed by the Bill is not requisite for the support of the Christian Religion. To say that it is, is a contradiction to the Christian Religion itself, for every page of it disavows a dependence on the powers of this world: it is a contradiction to fact; for it is known that this Religion both existed and flourished, not only without the support of human laws, but in spite of every opposition from them, and not only during the period of miraculous aid, but long after it had been left to its own evidence and the ordinary care of Providence. Nay, it is a contradiction in terms; for a Religion not invented by human policy, must have pre-existed and been supported, before it was established by human policy.
James Madison (1751-1836) American statesman, political theorist, US President (1809-17)
“A Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments,” letter to the Virginia Assembly (20 Jun 1785)
On a proposed law to have the state financially support "Teachers of the Christian Religion." Full text.