- 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.
- 16,806 quotes and counting ...
Quote Search
Authors
Topic Cloud
action age America belief books change character Christianity 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 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.
WISTish
- * Visual quotes (graphics, memes) only
Admin
Popular Quotables
- “Wealth and Poverty,” speech, National… (5,788)
- “The Lesson for Today,” A Witness Tree (1942) (5,673)
- Agamemnon, ll. 175-183 [tr. Johnston (2007)] (5,452)
- Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962) (4,826)
- “The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933) (4,507)
- “In Search of a Majority,” Speech,… (3,719)
- “On The Conduct of Life” (1822) (3,614)
- “Get a Knife, Get a Dog, but Get Rid of… (3,559)
- “The Historian as Participant,” Daedalus… (2,999)
- “Hallowed Ground” (1825) (2,987)
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
- 20-Jan-20 - "The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life," sermon, New Covenant Baptist Church, Chicago (9 Apr 1967) | WIST on “Rediscovering Lost Values,” sermon, Second Baptist Church, Detroit (28 Feb 1954).
- 17-Jan-20 - (Attributed) | WIST on The Screw-Tape Letters, #29 (1942).
- 7-Jan-20 - "Your Future As A Writer," Writer's Digest (May 1986) | WIST on The Outline of History, Vol. 2, ch. 41, sec. 4 (1921).
- 23-Dec-19 - Chamblee54 on Last written note.
- 16-Dec-19 - Dave on Authors.
- 20-Nov-19 - Debbie on Authors.
Quotations about heterodoxy
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
The truth is always in the minority, and the minority is always stronger than the majority, because as a rule the minority is made up of those who actually have an opinion, while the strength of the majority is illusory, formed of that crowd which has no opinion — and which therefore the next moment (when it becomes clear that the minority is the stronger) adopts the latter’s opinion, which now is in the majority, i.e., becomes rubbish by having the whole retinue and numerousness on its side, while the truth is again in a new minority.
The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
The Dawn (1881)
Alt. trans.: "The surest way of ruining a youth is to teach him to respect those who think as he does more highly than those who think differently from him." [[tr. R.J. Hollingdale (1982)]
The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.
George Orwell (1903-1950) English writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
(Attributed)
The freethinking of one age is the common sense of the next.
Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) English poet and critic
God and the Bible (1875)
When we lose the right to be different, we lose the right to be free.
Charles Evans Hughes, Sr. (1862-1948) American statesman, politician, Supreme Court Justice (1910-1916, 1930-1941)
Speech, 150th Anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill, Faneuil Hall, Boston (17 Jun 1925)
Heresy is what the minority believe; it is the name given by the powerful to the doctrine of the weak.
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, agnostic, orator
“Heretics and Heresies” (1874)
(Source)
A cult is a religion with no power.
Thomas Wolfe (1900-1938) American writer
In Our Time, ch. 2 (1980)
Standing in the presence of the Unknown, all have the same right to think, and all are equally interested in the great question of origin and destiny. All I claim, all I plead for, is liberty of thought and expression. That is all.
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, agnostic, orator
“The Liberty of Man, Woman, and Child” (1877)
On the necessary points, unity. On the questionable points, liberty. In everything, love.
[In necessariis unites, in non necessariis libertas, in omnibus caritas.]
Rupertus Meldenius (1582-1651) German writer [pseud. of Peter Meiderlin]
Paraenesis votiva pro Pace Ecclesiae ad Theologos Augustanae Confessionis (1626)
Also translated as "essentials" and "non-essentials."
Paraphrase of final lines of the work: Verbo dicam: Si nos servaremus IN necesariis Unitatem, IN non-necessariis Libertatem, IN UTRISQUE Charitatem, optimo certe loco essent res nostrae. ["In a word, were we to observe unity in essentials, liberty in incidentals, and in all things charity, our affairs would be certainly in a most happy situation."]
Commonly attributed to St Augustine, but also to John Wesley, Richard Baxter, and several others. See discussion here and here.
In necessary things, unity; in disputed things, liberty; in all things, charity.
It is not best that we should all think alike; it is differences of opinion that make horse races.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson, ch. 19, epigraph (1894)
