- 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 19,626 quotations by 3,057 authors. Please feel free to browse and borrow.
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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.
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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.
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Quotations about access
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
Bad roads act as filters. They separate those who are sufficiently appreciative of what lies beyond the blacktop to be willing to undergo mild inconvenience from that much larger number of travelers which is not willing. The rougher the road, the finer the filter.
Joseph Wood Krutch (1893-1970) American educator, writer, critic, naturalist
Baja California and the Geography of Hope, Introduction (1967)
(Source)
This was a thought that Krutch adapted and repeated in a number of writings.
In The Forgotten Peninsula, A Naturalist in Baja California, Prologue (1961), Krutch quotes an acquaintance as saying, regarding the peninsula's unspoiled beauty, "Baja is a splendid example of how much bad roads can do for a country." This quotation was often misattributed directly to him, and he adopted the sentiment.
Late in his life (Winter 1967-68), Krutch was interviewed by Edward Abbey for Sage magazine (reprinted in One Life at a Time, Please (1988)), and discussed the proposed development of the new Canyonlands National Park:
Too many people use their automobiles not as a means to get to the parks but rather use the parks as a place to take their automobiles. What our national parks need are not more good roads but more bad roads. [...] There’s nothing like a good bad dirt road to screen out the faintly interested and to invite in the genuinely interested.
No society can legitimately call itself civilized if a sick person is denied medical aid because of lack of means.
Equally clear is the right to hear. To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker. It is just as criminal to rob a man of his right to speak and hear as it would be to rob him of his money.
Frederick Douglass (1817-1895) American abolitionist, orator, writer
“A Plea for Freedom of Speech in Boston” (9 Dec 1880)
(Source)