- 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.
- 17,514 quotes and counting ...
Quote Search
Authors
Topic Cloud
action age America argument author beauty belief change character courage death education ego error evil faith fear freedom future God government happiness history humanity integrity leadership liberty life love morality perspective politics power progress 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… (7,101)
- “The Lesson for Today,” A Witness Tree (1942) (5,836)
- Agamemnon, ll. 175-183 [tr. Johnston (2007)] (5,795)
- “The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933) (4,896)
- Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962) (4,873)
- “On The Conduct of Life” (1822) (3,933)
- “In Search of a Majority,” Speech,… (3,834)
- “Get a Knife, Get a Dog, but Get Rid of… (3,685)
- “A Cult of Ignorance,” Newsweek (21 Jan 1980) (3,117)
- “The Historian as Participant,” Daedalus… (3,107)
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
- 17-Sep-20 - Tristam Shandy, 1.17 (1759-67) | WIST on Religio Medici, Part 1, sec. 25 (1642) [ed. Symonds (1886)].
- 16-Sep-20 - Dave on “To Those Born Later [An die Nachgeborenen],” (1938) [tr. Horton (2008)].
- 16-Sep-20 - (Attributed) | WIST on Thus Spoke Zarathustra [Also Sprach Zarathustra], Part 2, “Of the Compassionate [Von den Mitleidigen]” (1892) [tr. Hollingdale (1961)].
- 16-Sep-20 - "One Must Not Forget," interview by Alvin P. Sanoff, US News & World Report (27 Oct 1986) | WIST on Thus Spoke Zarathustra [Also Sprach Zarathustra], Part 2, “Of the Compassionate [Von den Mitleidigen]” (1892) [tr. Hollingdale (1961)].
- 9-Sep-20 - William Timberman on “To Those Born Later [An die Nachgeborenen],” (1938) [tr. Horton (2008)].
- 9-Sep-20 - Dave on “To Those Born Later [An die Nachgeborenen],” (1938) [tr. Horton (2008)].
-
Quotations about hurt
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone’s feelings unintentionally.
Oliver Herford (1863–1935) Anglo-American writer, artist and illustrator
(Attributed)
Widely attributed to Herford as early as 1915. Similar in construction to "A gentleman is a man who never gives offense unintentionally," "A gentleman is a person who never insults anyone unintentionally," etc., which go back to at least 1905, and in the late 1920s were attributed without citation to Oscar Wilde. See here for more discussion of the Wilde citation.
By possible coincidence, Herford was known at the time as the American Oscar Wilde.
The essence of good manners consists in making it clear that one has no wish to hurt. When it is clearly necessary to hurt, it must be done in such a way as to make it evident that the necessity is felt to be regrettable.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“Good Manners and Hypocrisy,” New York American (14 Dec 1934)
(Source)
Sure, there are differences in degree, but we’ve got to stop comparing wounds and go out after the system that does the wounding.
Florynce "Flo" Kennedy (1916-2000) American lawyer, feminist, civil rights activist
(Attributed)
Quoted in Gloria Steinem, "The Verbal Karate of Florynce R. Kennedy, Esq.," Ms. (Mar 1973).
It’s important to be kind. You can’t know all the times that you’ve hurt people in tiny, significant ways. It’s easy to be cruel without meaning to be. There’s nothing you can do about that. But you can choose to be kind. Be kind.
Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated.
Coretta Scott King (1927-2006) American author, activist, civil rights leader
Speech, San Francisco (14 Apr 1989)
My pain may be the reason for somebody’s laugh, but my laugh must never be the reason for somebody’s pain.
Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977) English comic actor, film director, composer
(Attributed)
