- 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 19,638 quotations by 3,058 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… (10,019)
- Agamemnon, ll. 175-183 [tr. Johnston (2007)] (6,678)
- “The Lesson for Today,” A Witness Tree (1942) (6,260)
- “The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933) (5,641)
- Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962) (4,970)
- “Tips for Teens,” Social Studies (1981) (4,825)
- “On The Conduct of Life” (1822) (4,636)
- Letter to Clara Rilke (1 Jan 1907) (4,631)
- “A Cult of Ignorance,” Newsweek (21 Jan 1980) (4,253)
- “In Search of a Majority,” Speech,… (4,151)
Recent Feedback
- More quotes by Thoreau, Henry David on Dead Poets Society (1989)
- More quotes by Schulman, Tom on Walden, ch. 1 “Economy” (1854)
- More quotes by Shakespeare, William on (Attributed)
- More quotes by Boorstin, Daniel J. on Twelfth Night, Act 2, Sc. 5, l. 147ff [Malvolio] (1601)
- More quotes by Shakespeare, William on “Caesar,” Lives [tr. Dryden (1693)]
- More quotes by Shakespeare, William on Shakespeare Up-to-Date
- More quotes by Shakespeare, William on First Principles, Pt. I “The Unknowable,” ch. 1 “Religion and Science”” (1862)
- More quotes by Bulwer-Lytton, Edward George on Hamlet, Act 2, sc. 2, l. 366ff [Rosencrantz] (c. 1600)
- More quotes by Williams, Roger on Letter to the Danbury Baptists (1 Jan 1802)
- Nathan Rizzuti and Current Affairs Times on Letter to the Synod of the Reformed Church of North America (12 Jun 1832)
Quotations about ad hominem
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
The usual devastating put-downs imply that a person is basically bad, rather than that he is a person who sometimes does bad things. Obviously, there is a vast difference between a “bad” person and a person who does something bad.
Hilary Hinton "Zig" Ziglar (1926-2012) American author, salesperson, motivational speaker
See You at the Top, Segment 2, ch. 2 “Causes of a Poor Self Image” (1974)
(Source)
It is only when they cannot answer your reasons, that they wish to knock you down.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“The Assault upon Mr. Sumner,” speech, Concord (26 May 1856)
(Source)
Every whisper of infamy is industriously circulated, every hint of suspicion eagerly improved, and every failure of conduct joyfully published by those whose interest it is that the eye and voice of the public should be employed on any rather than themselves.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
The Rambler, #76 (8 Dec 1750)
(Source)
At Cambridge University I was taught a laudable method of argument: you never personalise, but you have absolutely no respect for people’s opinions. You are never rude to the person, but you can be savagely rude about what the person thinks. That seems to me a crucial distinction: people must be protected from discrimination by virtue of their race, but you cannot ring-fence their ideas. The moment you say that any idea system is sacred, whether it’s a religious belief system or a secular ideology, the moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision, or contempt, freedom of thought becomes impossible.
Salman Rushdie (b. 1947) Indian novelist
“Do we have to fight the battle for the Enlightenment all over again?” The Independent (22 Jan 2005)
(Source)
The man who strikes first admits that his ideas have given out.
(Other Authors and Sources)
Chinese proverb
