- 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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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
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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)
I think the detective story is by far the best upholder of the democratic doctrine in literature. I mean, there couldn’t have been detective stories until there were democracies, because the very foundation of the detective story is the thesis that if you’re guilty you’ll get it in the neck and if you’re innocent you can’t possibly be harmed. No matter who you are. There was no such conception of justice until after 1830. There was no such thing as a policeman or a detective in the world before 1830, because the modern conception of the policeman and detective, namely, a man whose only function is to find out who did it and then get the evidence that will punish him, did not exist. … In Paris before the year 1800 — read the Dumas stories — there were gangs of people whose business was to go out and punish wrongdoers. But why? Because they had hurt De Marillac or Richelieu or the Duke or some Huguenot noble, not just because they had harmed society. It is only the modern policeman that is out to protect society.