- 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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Popular Quotables
- “Wealth and Poverty,” speech, National… (8,033)
- Agamemnon, ll. 175-183 [tr. Johnston (2007)] (6,086)
- “The Lesson for Today,” A Witness Tree (1942) (5,972)
- “The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933) (5,154)
- Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962) (4,894)
- “On The Conduct of Life” (1822) (4,380)
- “In Search of a Majority,” Speech,… (3,949)
- “Get a Knife, Get a Dog, but Get Rid of… (3,763)
- Letter to Clara Rilke (1 Jan 1907) (3,634)
- “A Cult of Ignorance,” Newsweek (21 Jan 1980) (3,538)
Most Quoted Authors
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Adams, John • Bacon, Francis • Bible • Bierce, Ambrose • Billings, Josh • Butcher, Jim • Chesterfield (Lord) • 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 • 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-Feb-21 - "Mobs and Education," Speech, Twenty-Eighth Congregational Society, Boston (16 Dec 1860) | WIST on “The Boston Mob,” speech, Antislavery Meeting, Boston (21 Oct 1855).
- 22-Feb-21 - Letter (1860) | WIST on Areopagitica: a Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing (1644).
- 21-Feb-21 - "What I Believe," Forum and Century (Oct 1930) | WIST on Memoirs of William Miller, quoted in Life (2 May 1955).
- 21-Feb-21 - "What I Believe," Forum and Century (Oct 1930) | WIST on Letter, unsent (1927).
- 20-Feb-21 - "What I Believe," Forum and Century (Oct 1930) | WIST on Remark (Winter 1927).
- 13-Feb-21 - tweet: the case of anti-cytokine therapy for Covid-19 – Med-stat.info on “The Divine Afflatus,” New York Evening Mail (16 Nov 1917).
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- "Mobs and Education," Speech, Twenty-Eighth Congregational Society, Boston (16 Dec 1860) | WIST: Phillips,...
- Letter (1860) | WIST: Andrew, John A.
- "What I Believe," Forum and Century (Oct 1930) | WIST: Einstein, Albert
- "What I Believe," Forum and Century (Oct 1930) | WIST: Einstein, Albert
- "What I Believe," Forum and Century (Oct 1930) | WIST: Einstein, Albert
Quotations about good cause
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
A good cause has to be careful of the company it keeps.
Rebecca West (1892-1983) British author, journalist, literary critic, travel writer [pseud. for Cicily Isabel Fairfield]
“World of Books: The Greek Way,” Sunday Times of London (23 Aug 1942)
We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause.
William James (1842-1910) American psychologist and philosopher
Letter to E. L. Godkin (24 Dec 1895)
(Source)
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.
There is no greater satisfaction for a just and well-meaning person than the knowledge that he has devoted his best energies to the service of a good cause.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) German-American physicist
“A Message to My Adopted Country,” Pageant (Jan 1946)
(Source)
Later reprinted as "The Negro Question."
