- 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… (7,236)
- “The Lesson for Today,” A Witness Tree (1942) (5,859)
- Agamemnon, ll. 175-183 [tr. Johnston (2007)] (5,853)
- “The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933) (4,962)
- Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962) (4,876)
- “On The Conduct of Life” (1822) (3,972)
- “In Search of a Majority,” Speech,… (3,846)
- “Get a Knife, Get a Dog, but Get Rid of… (3,708)
- “A Cult of Ignorance,” Newsweek (21 Jan 1980) (3,177)
- “The Historian as Participant,” Daedalus… (3,172)
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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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Quotations about opposition
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
Although in our country the Chief Magistrate must almost of necessity be chosen by a party and stand pledged to its principles and measures, yet in his official action he should not be the President of a part only, but of the whole people of the United States. While he executes the laws with an impartial hand, shrinks from no proper responsibility, and faithfully carries out in the executive department of the Government the principles and policy of those who have chosen him, he should not be unmindful that our fellow-citizens who have differed with him in opinion are entitled to the full and free exercise of their opinions and judgments, and that the rights of all are entitled to respect and regard.
James K. Polk (1795-1849) American lawyer, politician, US President (1845-1849)
Inaugural Address (4 Mar 1845)
(Source)
Sometimes I get the feeling the whole world is against me, but deep down I know that’s not true. Some smaller countries are neutral.
Robert Orben (b. 1927) American comedy writer, magician, speechwriter
(Attributed)
He said the wicked know that if the ill they do be of sufficient horror men will not speak against it. That men have just enough stomach for small evils and only these will they oppose.
If you attack Stupidity, you attack an entrenched interest with friends in government and every walk of public life, and you will make small progress against it.
Robertson Davies (1913-1995) Canadian author, editor, publisher
The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks (1949)
(Source)
He who is mistaken in an action which he sincerely believes to be right may be an enemy, but retains our esteem.
[Celui qui se trompe dans une intention qu’il croit bonne, on peut le combattre, on ne cesse pas de l’estimer.]
Jules Verne (1828-1905) French novelist, poet, playwright
The Mysterious Island, Part 3, ch. 16 (1874)
(Source)
Everybody favors free speech in the slack moments when no axes are being ground.
Heywood Broun (1888-1939) American journalist, author
New York World (23 Oct 1926)
If you want to make enemies, try to change something.
Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) US President (1913-20), educator, political scientist
Speech, Detroit (10 Jul 1916)
For man’s only weapon is courage that flinches not from the gates of Hell itself, and against such not even the legions of Hell can stand.
Times of general calamity and confusion have ever been productive of the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace, and the brightest thunderbolt is elicited from the darkest storm.
Charles Caleb "C. C." Colton (1780-1832) English cleric, writer
Lacon: or, Many Things in Few Words, # 28 (1821 ed.)
A President is best judged by the enemies he makes when he has really hit his stride.
Maxwell "Max" Lerner (1902-1992) American journalist, columnist, educator
Column, New York Star (9 Jan 1949)
Reprinted in "The Education of Harry Truman," pt. 4, The Unfinished Country (1959).
About one-fifth of the people are against everything all the time.
Robert Francis Kennedy (1925-1968) American politician
Speech, University of Pennsylvania (6 May 1964)
The road to truth is long, and lined the entire way with annoying bastards.
Alexander Jablokov (b. 1956) American writer
“The Place of No Shadows” (1990)
Aggression unopposed becomes a contagious disease.
Jimmy Carter (b. 1924) American politician, US President (1977-1981), Nobel laureate [James Earl Carter, Jr.]
Address to the Nation (4 Jan 1980)
On Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.
Americans have a lazy habit of defining themselves in terms of what they are against rather than what they believe in.
A. Whitney Brown (b. 1952) American comic actor, writer
(Attributed)
