- 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 19,647 quotations by 3,059 authors. Please feel free to browse and borrow.
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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… (10,035)
- Agamemnon, ll. 175-183 [tr. Johnston (2007)] (6,679)
- “The Lesson for Today,” A Witness Tree (1942) (6,267)
- “The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933) (5,646)
- Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962) (4,970)
- “Tips for Teens,” Social Studies (1981) (4,831)
- “On The Conduct of Life” (1822) (4,637)
- Letter to Clara Rilke (1 Jan 1907) (4,631)
- “A Cult of Ignorance,” Newsweek (21 Jan 1980) (4,255)
- “In Search of a Majority,” Speech,… (4,151)
Recent Feedback
- More quotes by Dostoyevsky, Fyodor on Comment (1770)
- More quotes by Dostoyevsky, Fyodor on My Several Worlds, Part 4 (1954)
- More quotes by Buck, Pearl S. on Comment (1770)
- More quotes by Buck, Pearl S. on (Attributed)
- More quotes by Johnson, Samuel on My Several Worlds, Part 4 (1954)
- More quotes by Johnson, Samuel on (Attributed)
- More quotes by Jefferson, Thomas on “Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom,” Preamble (18 Jun 1779; enacted 16 Jan 1786)
- More quotes by Jefferson, Thomas on Autobiography (1821)
- More quotes by Jefferson, Thomas on “Declaration of Independence,” original rough draft (Jun 1776)
- More quotes by Thoreau, Henry David on Dead Poets Society (1989)
You also ask, if I think the world tendency is towards Fascism, why do I support the war. It is a choice of evils — I fancy nearly every war is that. I know enough of British imperialism not to like it, but I would support it against Nazism or Japanese imperialism, as the lesser evil. Similarly I would support the USSR against Germany because I think the USSR cannot altogether escape its past and retains enough of the original ideas of the Revolution to make it a more hopeful phenomenon than Nazi Germany. I think, and have thought ever since the war began, in 1936 or thereabouts, that our cause is the better, but we have to keep on making it the better, which involves constant criticism.