- WIST is my personal collection of quotations, curated for thought, amusement, turn of phrase, historical significance, or sometimes just (often-unintentional) irony.
Please feel free to browse and borrow.
- 18,083 quotes and counting ...
Quote Search
Authors
Topic Cloud
action age America author beauty belief change character death democracy education ego error evil faith fear freedom future God government happiness history humanity integrity leadership liberty life love morality perspective politics power pride 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.
WISTish
- * Visual quotes (graphics, memes) only
Popular Quotables
- “Wealth and Poverty,” speech, National… (8,075)
- Agamemnon, ll. 175-183 [tr. Johnston (2007)] (6,102)
- “The Lesson for Today,” A Witness Tree (1942) (5,987)
- “The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933) (5,169)
- Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962) (4,898)
- “On The Conduct of Life” (1822) (4,428)
- “In Search of a Majority,” Speech,… (3,957)
- “Get a Knife, Get a Dog, but Get Rid of… (3,767)
- Letter to Clara Rilke (1 Jan 1907) (3,640)
- “A Cult of Ignorance,” Newsweek (21 Jan 1980) (3,548)
Most Quoted Authors
Author Cloud
Adams, John • 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 • Huxley, Aldous • Ingersoll, Robert Green • 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
- Phillips, Wendell - "Mobs and Education," Speech, Twenty-Eighth Congregational Society, Boston (16 Dec 1860) | WIST on “The Boston Mob,” speech, Antislavery Meeting, Boston (21 Oct 1855)
- Andrew, John A. - Letter (1860) | WIST on Areopagitica: a Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing (1644)
- Einstein, Albert - "What I Believe," Forum and Century (Oct 1930) | WIST on Memoirs of William Miller, quoted in Life (2 May 1955)
- Einstein, Albert - "What I Believe," Forum and Century (Oct 1930) | WIST on Letter, unsent (1927)
- Einstein, Albert - "What I Believe," Forum and Century (Oct 1930) | WIST on Remark (Winter 1927)
- Opinion: The hazards of medicine by tweet: the case of anti-cytokine therapy for Covid-19 – Med-stat.info on “The Divine Afflatus,” New York Evening Mail (16 Nov 1917)
- MEDIKI • Opinion: The hazards of medicine by tweet: the case of anti-cytokine therapy for Covid-19 on “The Divine Afflatus,” New York Evening Mail (16 Nov 1917)
- The hazard of publishing research findings via Twitter - Healthy First on “The Divine Afflatus,” New York Evening Mail (16 Nov 1917)
- What Does The Bible Say About Politics? - Glorynewstvonline on Republic, Book 1, 347c
- The hazard of publishing research findings via Twitter - STAT | Health Wellness Journal on “The Divine Afflatus,” New York Evening Mail (16 Nov 1917)
For thee — if this my deed seems foolishness,
The fool has caught the foolish in her folly.[σοὶ δ᾽ εἰ δοκῶ νῦν μῶρα δρῶσα τυγχάνειν,
σχεδόν τι μώρῳ μωρίαν ὀφλισκάνω.]Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Antigone, ll. 469-70 [Antigone] (441 BC) [tr. Donaldson (1848)]
(Source)
Alt. trans.:
And if my present actions are foolish in your sight, it may be that it is a fool who accuses me of folly.
[tr. Jebb (1891)]
And if in this thou judgest me a fool,
Methinks the judge of folly's not acquit.
[tr. Storr (1859)]
This to thee may seem
Madness and folly; if it be, 'tis fit
I should act thus; it but resembles thee.
[tr. Werner (1892)]
But you! You think
I've been a fool? It takes a fool to think that.
[tr. Woodruff (2001)]
If you think I’m a mindless woman then perhaps it's a mindless man who recognises a mindless woman.
[tr. Theodoridis (2004)]
If you think what I’m doing now is stupid,
perhaps I’m being charged with foolishness
by someone who’s a fool.
[tr. Johnston (2005), ll. 531-33]
And if you think my acts are foolishness
the foolishness may be in a fool's eye.
[tr. Wyckoff]