- 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.
- 16,707 quotes and counting ...
Quote Search
Authors
Topic Cloud
action age America belief books change character Christianity creation death democracy education ego evil faith fear freedom future God government happiness history honesty humanity integrity justice leadership liberty life love morality perspective politics poverty power religion science society success truth virtue war wealth wisdom writing- I've been adding topics/tags since 2014, so not all quotes have been given one. Full topic list.
WISTish
- * Visual quotes (graphics, memes) only
Admin
Popular Quotables
- “The Lesson for Today,” A Witness Tree (1942) (5,525)
- “Wealth and Poverty,” speech, National… (5,399)
- Agamemnon, ll. 175-183 [tr. Johnston (2007)] (5,355)
- Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962) (4,796)
- “The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933) (4,256)
- “In Search of a Majority,” Speech,… (3,613)
- “Get a Knife, Get a Dog, but Get Rid of… (3,431)
- “Hallowed Ground” (1825) (2,917)
- “On The Conduct of Life” (1822) (2,872)
- “The Historian as Participant,” Daedalus… (2,661)
Most Quoted Authors
Author Cloud
Adams, John • Bacon, Francis • Bible • Bierce, Ambrose • Billings, Josh • Butcher, Jim • Chesterton, Gilbert Keith • Churchill, Winston • Einstein, Albert • Eisenhower, Dwight David • Emerson, Ralph Waldo • Franklin, Benjamin • Fuller, Thomas (1654) • Gaiman, Neil • Galbraith, John Kenneth • Gandhi, Mohandas • Goethe, Johann von • Hazlitt, William • Heinlein, Robert A. • Hoffer, Eric • Huxley, Aldous • Ingersoll, Robert Green • James, William • 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
- 24-May-19 - Dave on Inaugural Address (20 Jan 1989).
- 16-May-19 - Mike Gaudioso on Inaugural Address (20 Jan 1989).
- 23-Apr-19 - Dave on Letter to Baron von Stein, Dammartin le St. Père (7 Jan 1814).
- 14-Apr-19 - Gastone Breccia on Letter to Baron von Stein, Dammartin le St. Père (7 Jan 1814).
- 9-Apr-19 - ***Dave Does the Blog on The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, ch. 2 (1876).
- 8-Apr-19 - Paraenesis votiva pro Pace Ecclesiae ad Theologos Augustanae Confessionis (1626) | WIST on Motto.
-
Quotations about expression
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
I really love language; it allows us to explain the pain and the glory, the nuances and the delicacies, of our existence. Most of all, it allows us to laugh. We need language.
Maya Angelou (1928-2014) American poet, memoirist, activist [b. Marguerite Ann Johnson]
“The Art of Fiction,” Paris Review, #116, Interview with George Plimpton (1990)
A man who cannot get angry is like a stream that cannot overflow, that is always turbid. Sometimes indignation is as good as a thunder-storm in summer, clearing and cooling the air.
Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) American clergyman and orator
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit, “Man” (1887)
(Source)
Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.
William Arthur Ward (1921-1994) American aphorist, author, educator
(Attributed)
Don’t express your ideas too clearly. Most people think little of what they understand, and venerate what they do not.
Baltasar Gracián y Morales (1601-1658) Spanish writer.
The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)
The more an idea is developed, the more concise becomes its expression; the more a tree is pruned, the better is the fruit.
Alfred Bougeard (1815-1882) French writer
(Attributed)
In J. De Finod (ed., tr.) A Thousand Flashes of French Wit, Wisdom, and Wickedness (1881).
Art is not living. It is a use of living.
Audre Lorde (1934-1992) American writer, feminist, civil rights activist
“My Words Will Be There”
(Source)
Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can’t, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.
Robert Frost (1874-1963) American poet
(Attributed)
I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.
Audre Lorde (1934-1992) American writer, feminist, civil rights activist
“The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action,” speech, Modern Language Association (28 Dec 1977)
(Source)
