- WIST is my personal collection of quotations, curated for thought, amusement, turn of phrase, historical significance, or sometimes just (often-unintentional) irony.
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- 17,652 quotes and counting ...
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action age America author beauty belief change character courage death education ego error evil faith fear freedom future God government happiness history humanity integrity justice leadership liberty life love morality perspective politics poverty power religion science society success truth tyranny virtue war wealth wisdom writing- I've been adding topics/tags since 2014, so not all quotes have been given one. Full topic list.
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Popular Quotables
- “Wealth and Poverty,” speech, National… (7,243)
- “The Lesson for Today,” A Witness Tree (1942) (5,862)
- Agamemnon, ll. 175-183 [tr. Johnston (2007)] (5,855)
- “The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933) (4,963)
- Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962) (4,876)
- “On The Conduct of Life” (1822) (3,975)
- “In Search of a Majority,” Speech,… (3,846)
- “Get a Knife, Get a Dog, but Get Rid of… (3,711)
- “A Cult of Ignorance,” Newsweek (21 Jan 1980) (3,181)
- “The Historian as Participant,” Daedalus… (3,178)
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.
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Quotations about good cause
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
War is a grim, cruel business, a business justified only as a means of sustaining the forces of good against those of evil.
Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general, US President (1953-61)
United War Fund appeal (11 Sep 1945)
(Source)
Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed.
Like other idealisms, patriotism varies from a noble devotion to a moral lunacy.
William Ralph Inge (1860-1954) English prelate [Dean Inge]
“Our Present Discontents,” Outspoken Essays: First Series (1919)
The essence of leadership is to get others to do something because they think you want it done and because they know it is worth while doing — that is what we are talking about.
Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general, US President (1953-61)
Speech, Republican Campaign Picnic, Gettysburg (12 Sep 1956)
The struggle which is not joyous is the wrong struggle. The joy of the struggle is not hedonism and hilarity, but the sense of purpose, achievement, and dignity.
Germaine Greer (b. 1939) English reformer, author, educator
The Female Eunuch, Introduction (1970)
If it was a worthwhile fight, it didn’t matter who won; some good was sure to come of it.
Richard Brooks (1912-1992) American screenwriter, film director, novelist
Deadline: U.S.A. [film] (1952)
Line spoken by Ethyl Barrymore.
