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- “Wealth and Poverty,” speech, National… (8,185)
- Agamemnon, ll. 175-183 [tr. Johnston (2007)] (6,169)
- “The Lesson for Today,” A Witness Tree (1942) (6,010)
- “The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933) (5,211)
- Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962) (4,916)
- “On The Conduct of Life” (1822) (4,475)
- “In Search of a Majority,” Speech,… (3,969)
- “Tips for Teens,” Social Studies (1981) (3,924)
- “Get a Knife, Get a Dog, but Get Rid of… (3,775)
- Letter to Clara Rilke (1 Jan 1907) (3,658)
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Adams, John • Bacon, Francis • Bible • Bierce, Ambrose • Billings, Josh • Butcher, Jim • Chesterfield (Lord) • Chesterton, Gilbert Keith • Churchill, Winston • Cicero, Marcus Tullius • 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 • 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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- France, Anatole - (Spurious) | WIST on A Writer’s Notebook (1949)
- Dave on The Odyssey [Ὀδύσσεια], Book 6, l. 180ff [Odysseus to Nausicaa] (c. 700 BC) [tr. Rieu (1946)]
- Richard McBroom on “What I Believe,” Forum and Century (Oct 1930)
- Marcus Aurelius - (Spurious) | WIST on Meditations, Book 2, #11 [tr. Gill (2014)]
- Richard McBroom on “What I Believe,” Forum and Century (Oct 1930)
- Elizabeth II - Address to the Nation (5 Apr 2020) | WIST on “We’ll Meet Again” (1939) [with Hughie Charles]
- Pratchett, Terry - The Last Hero (2001) | WIST on Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs, #3366 (1732)
- King, Stephen - On Writing, ch. 12 (2000) | WIST on In “Ten Rules for Writing Fiction,” The Guardian (20 Feb 2010)
- King, Stephen - On Writing, ch. 12 (2000) | WIST on On the Art of Writing, Lecture 12 “On Style,” Cambridge University (28 Jan 1914)
Quotations about price
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
I don’t want to kill anybody. I am passionately opposed to killing, but I’m even more passionately fond of freedom.
Edward Teller (1908-2003) Hungarian-American theoretical physicist
“Fallout and Disarmament: A Debate Between Linus Pauling and Edward Teller,” KQED-TV, San Francisco (20 Feb 1958)
(Source)
“Rich people show their appreciation through favors,” I said. “When everyone you know has more money than they know what to do with, money stops being a useful transactional tool. So instead you offer favors. Deals. Quid pro quos. Things that involve personal involvement rather than money. Because when you’re that rich, your personal time is your limiting factor.”
John Scalzi (b. 1969) American writer
Lock In (2014)
Freedom is worth paying for.
[La liberté vaut qu’on la paye.]
Jules Verne (1828-1905) French novelist, poet, playwright
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Part 2, ch. 8 “Vigo Bay” (1870)
(Source)
It is but shaping the bribe to the taste, and every one has his price.
Samuel Richardson (1689-1761) English writer and printer
A Collection of the Moral and Instructive Sentiments (1755)
Someone sends me a clipping from Columnist Lyons with this honey: “They are telling this of Lord Beaverbrook and a visiting Yankee actress. In a game of hypothetical questions, Beaverbrook asked the lady: ‘Would you live with a stranger if he paid you one million pounds?’ She said she would. ‘And if be paid you five pounds?’ The irate lady fumed: ‘Five pounds. What do you think I am?’ Beaverbrook replied: ‘We’ve already established that. Now we are trying to determine the degree.'”
Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook (1879-1964) Anglo-Canadian business tycoon, publisher, politician, writer
“As O. O. McIntyre Sees It,” syndicated column (2 Jan 1937)
This anecdote has been attributed to a number of people, including Winston Churchill and George Bernard Shaw, usually in a bawdier form, e.g.:SHAW: [To a woman seated by him at a dinner party.] Madam, if I gave you a million pounds, would you sleep with me?
WOMAN: I think I would.
SHAW: Would you do it for five?
WOMAN: Sir, what kind of woman do you think I am?
SHAW: I thought we had established that, and were merely haggling over the price.
The above, attributing the exchange to Lord Beaverbrook, is the earliest version found. See here and here for more discussion and research into its origins.
Better be cheated in the price than in the quality of goods.
[Más vale ser engañado en el precio que en la mercadería.]
Baltasar Gracián y Morales (1601-1658) Spanish Jesuit priest, writer, philosopher
The Art of Worldly Wisdom [Oráculo Manual y Arte de Prudencia], #157 (1647) [tr. Jacobs (1892)]
(Source)
Alt. trans.: "Better to be cheated by the price than by the merchandise." [tr. Maurer (1992)]
Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.
Thomas Paine (1737-1809) American political philosopher and writer
“The American Crisis” #4 (12 Sep 1777)
(Source)
Cheat me in the Price, but not in the Goods.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English writer, physician
Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs, #1090 (1732)
(Source)
VIR: I’d like to live just long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I want to look up into your lifeless eyes and wave, like this. Can you and your associates arrange that for me, Mr. Morden?
J. Michael (Joe) Straczynski (b. 1954) American screenwriter, producer, author [a/k/a "JMS"]
Babylon 5, 2×16 “In the Shadow of Z’ha’dum” (10 May 1995)
