- 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 19,646 quotations by 3,059 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… (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)
When you’re a kid, a rural, agriculturally-based colony town is a lot of fun to grow up in. It’s life on a farm, with goats and chickens and fields of wheat and sorghum, harvest celebrations and winter festivals. There’s not an eight- or nine-year-old kid who’s been invented who doesn’t find all of that unspeakably fun. But then you become a teenager and you start thinking about everything you might possibly want to do with your life, and you look at the options available to you. And then all farms, goats and chickens — and all the same people you’ve known all your life and will know all your life — begin to look a little less than optimal for a total life experience. It’s all the same, of course. That’s the point. It’s you who’s changed.