- 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.
-
Quote Search
- 18,420 quotes and counting ...
Authors
Topic Cloud
action age America 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 tyranny virtue war wealth wisdom writing- I've been adding topics since 2014, so not all quotes have been given one. Full topic list.
Author Cloud
Adams, John • Aristotle • 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) • 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 • Sophocles • Stevenson, Adlai • Stevenson, Robert Louis • Twain, Mark • Wilde, Oscar- Only the 45 most quoted authors are shown above. Full author list.
Most Quoted Authors
Popular Quotables
- “Wealth and Poverty,” speech, National… (8,417)
- Agamemnon, ll. 175-183 [tr. Johnston (2007)] (6,221)
- “The Lesson for Today,” A Witness Tree (1942) (6,049)
- “The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933) (5,278)
- Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962) (4,922)
- “On The Conduct of Life” (1822) (4,528)
- “Tips for Teens,” Social Studies (1981) (4,153)
- “In Search of a Majority,” Speech,… (3,996)
- “Get a Knife, Get a Dog, but Get Rid of… (3,782)
- Letter to Clara Rilke (1 Jan 1907) (3,684)
Recent Feedback
- Richard McBroom on “What I Believe,” Forum and Century (Oct 1930)
- Snyder, Timothy - On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (2017) | WIST on “Notes on Nationalism” (1945)
- Dave on Notice to email subscribers
- Nina on Notice to email subscribers
- ~~Admin - Notice to email subscribers | WIST on Subscribe/Feeds
- France, Anatole - (Spurious) | WIST on A Writer’s Notebook (1949)
- Dave on The Odyssey [Ὀδύσσεια], Book 6, l. 180ff [Odysseus to Nausicaa] (c. 700 BC) [tr. Rieu (1946)]
- Richard McBroom on “What I Believe,” Forum and Century (Oct 1930)
- Marcus Aurelius - (Spurious) | WIST on Meditations, Book 2, #11 [tr. Gill (2014)]
- Richard McBroom on “What I Believe,” Forum and Century (Oct 1930)
WISTish
- * Visual quotes (graphics, memes) only
Quotations about freedom of conscience
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
Let us believe that the whole of truth can never do harm to the whole of virtue. Trust it. And remember, that, in order to get the whole of truth, you must allow every man, right or wrong, freely to utter his conscience, and protect him in so doing.
Wendell Phillips (1811-1884) American abolitionist, orator
“The Boston Mob,” speech, Antislavery Meeting, Boston (21 Oct 1855)
(Source)
"On the Twentieth Anniversary of the Mob of October 21, 1835."
Conscience and the press ought to be unrestrained, not because men have a right to deviate from the exact line that duty prescribes, but because society, the aggregate of individuals, has no right to assume the prerogative of an infallible judge, and to undertake authoritatively to prescribe to its members in matters of pure speculation.
William Godwin (1756-1836) English journalist, political philosopher, novelist
Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, Book 2, ch. 5 (1793)
(Source)
Opinion, and the just maintenance of it, shall never be a crime in my view; nor bring injury on the individual.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to Samuel Adams (29 Mar 1801)
(Source)
Sometimes misattributed to George Washington.
I also give it in charge to you to avoid all disrespect of the religion of the country, and its ceremonies. Prudence, policy, and a true Christian spirit, will lead us to look wit compassion up their errors without insulting them. While we are contending for our own liberty, we should be very cautious not to violate the rights of conscience in others, ever considering that God alone is the judge of the hearts of men, and to him only in this case are they answerable.
George Washington (1732-1799) American military leader, Founding Father, US President (1789-1797)
“Charge to the Northern Expeditionary Force,” letter to Benedict Arnold (14 Sep 1775)
(Source)
Regarding the invasion of (Catholic) Quebec, Canada.
Conscience can’t be compelled.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English writer, physician
Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs, #1144 (1732)
(Source)
How has the church in every age, when in authority, defended itself? Always by a statute against blasphemy, against argument, against free speech. And there never was such a statute that did not stain the book that it was in and that did not certify to the savagery of the men who passed it.
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, agnostic, orator
Trial of C.B. Reynolds for blasphemy (May 1887)
(Source)
Why should man be afraid to think, and why should he fear to express his thoughts? Is it possible that an infinite Deity is unwilling that a man should investigate the phenomena by which he is surrounded? Is it possible that a god delights in threatening and terrifying men? What glory, what honor and renown a god must win on such a field! The ocean raving at a drop; a star envious of a candle; the sun jealous of a fire-fly.
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, agnostic, orator
“Heretics and Heresies” (1874)
(Source)
We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty.
Edward R. Murrow (1908-1965) American journalist
See It Now (7 Mar 1954)
Episode dealing with Sen. Joe McCarthy's of Communists in the US.
