- 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.
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Popular Quotables
- “Wealth and Poverty,” speech, National… (6,935)
- “The Lesson for Today,” A Witness Tree (1942) (5,815)
- Agamemnon, ll. 175-183 [tr. Johnston (2007)] (5,733)
- Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962) (4,870)
- “The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933) (4,852)
- “On The Conduct of Life” (1822) (3,924)
- “In Search of a Majority,” Speech,… (3,815)
- “Get a Knife, Get a Dog, but Get Rid of… (3,670)
- “The Historian as Participant,” Daedalus… (3,084)
- “Hallowed Ground” (1825) (3,064)
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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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- 6-Aug-20 - (Attributed) | WIST on The Rights of Man (1791).
- 24-Jul-20 - Italian proverb | WIST on Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales [Maxims], # 89 (1665-1678).
- 6-Jul-20 - (Attributed) | WIST on Quoted in Plutarch, Parallel Lives, “The Life of Solon,” sec. 18.5 [tr. Perrin (1914)].
- 6-Jul-20 - Agamemnon, l. 928 | WIST on Oedipus Rex, l. 1529 (concluding words).
- 20-May-20 - Introduction to the Art of Thinking, ch. 1, "Friendship" (1761) | WIST on John 15:13 (KJV).
- 18-May-20 - Chamblee54 on Clouds, ll. 998-999 (423 BC) [tr. Athenian Soc. (1912)].
Quotations about journey
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
In relation to his public, the artist of to-day […] walks at first with his companions, till one day he falls through a hole in the brambles, and from that moment is following the dark rapids of an underground river which may sometimes flow so near the surface that the laughing picnic parties are heard above, only to re-immerse itself in the solitude of the limestone and carry him along its winding tunnel, until it gushes out through the misty creeper-hung cave which he has always believed to exist, and sets him back in the sun.
Cyril Connolly (1903-1974) English intellectual, literary critic and writer.
“Writers and Society, 1940-3” (1943), The Condemned Playground (1946)
(Source)
Any experience deeply felt makes some men better and some men worse. When it has ended, they share nothing but the recollection of a commitment in which each was tested and to some degree found wanting. They were not alike when they began, and they were not alike when they finished. […] The consequences of the journey change the voyager so much more than the embarking or the arrival.
Murray Kempton (1917-1997) American journalist.
Part of Our Time: Some Ruins & Monuments of the Thirties, “A Prelude” (1955)
(Source)
How do you expect to arrive at the end of your own journey if you take the road to another man’s city? How do you expect to reach your own perfection by leading somebody else’s life?
Thomas Merton (1915-1968) French-American religious and writer [a.k.a. Fr. M. Louis]
New Seeds of Contemplation, ch. 14 “Integrity” (1962)
(Source)
You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension: a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You’re moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You’ve just crossed over into — the Twilight Zone.
Rod Serling (1924-1975) American screenwriter, playwright, television producer, narrator
Twilight Zone, Introduction, Seasons 4-5 (1963-1964)
(Source)
Uneventful. Boring. Tedious. All good adjectives to apply to long-haul travel; much better than exciting, unexpected, and abrupt.
Charles "Charlie" Stross (b. 1964) British writer
The Apocalypse Codex (2012)
“Is the Master out of his mind?” she asked me.
I nodded.
“And he’s taking you with him?”
I nodded again.
“Where?” she asked.
I pointed towards the centre of the earth.
“Into the cellar?” exclaimed the old servant.
“No,” I said, “farther down than that.”
Jules Verne (1828-1905) French novelist, poet, playwright
Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864)
(Source)
I have said time and again there is no place on this earth to which I would not travel, there is no chore I would not undertake if I had any faintest hope that, by so doing, I would promote the general cause of world peace.
Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general, US President (1953-61)
News Conference (23 Mar 1955)
The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way,
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) English writer, fabulist, philologist, academic [John Ronald Reuel Tolkien]
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1, ch. 1 “A Long-expected Party” (1954)
(Source)
The road reaches every place, the short cut only one.
James Richardson (b. 1950) American poet
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays, # 1 (2001)
He who is outside the door has already a good part of his journey behind him.
Other Authors and Sources
Dutch proverb
The distance is nothing; it is only the first step that costs.
Marie Anne de Vichy-Chamrond, Marquise du Deffand (1697-1780) French hostess and patron of the arts [Madame du Deffand].
Letter to Horace Walpole (6 Jun 1767)
A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.
John A. Shedd (contemp.) American writer
Salt from My Attic (1928)Variants:
More information on this quotation here. Sometimes (mis)attributed to William Greenough Thayer Shedd.- "Ships in harbor are safe, but that is not what ships are built for."
- "A ship in port is safe. But that’s not what ships were built for." (used by Grace Hopper)
- "A ship is always safe at shore, but that is not what it is built for." (frequently misattributed to Albert Einstein)
