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Popular Quotables
- “Wealth and Poverty,” speech, National… (6,636)
- “The Lesson for Today,” A Witness Tree (1942) (5,802)
- Agamemnon, ll. 175-183 [tr. Johnston (2007)] (5,687)
- Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962) (4,869)
- “The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933) (4,810)
- “On The Conduct of Life” (1822) (3,908)
- “In Search of a Majority,” Speech,… (3,809)
- “Get a Knife, Get a Dog, but Get Rid of… (3,663)
- “The Historian as Participant,” Daedalus… (3,057)
- “Hallowed Ground” (1825) (3,056)
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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.
Recent Feedback
- 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)].
- 18-May-20 - Chamblee54 on Mills E. Godwin, Governor of Virginia (Dec 1966).
- 11-May-20 - Chamblee54 on “Indian Summer,” Enough Rope (1926).
Quotations about production
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
Every man is a consumer, and ought to be a producer. He fails to make his place good in the world unless he not only pays his debt but also adds something to the common wealth.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
The Conduct of Life, ch. 3 “Wealth” (1860)
(Source)
A successful party is a creative act, and creation is always painful.
Phyllis McGinley (1905-1978) American author, poet
“Party Line,” Ladies’ Home Journal (1962)
(Source)
Later reprinted in Sixpence in Her Shoe (1964).
Coming up with ideas is the easiest thing on earth. Putting them down is the hardest.
Rod Serling (1924-1975) American screenwriter, playwright, television producer, narrator
“Writing for Television – Conversations with Rod Serling,” Ithaca College (1972)
(Source)
In our industrial and social system the interests of all men are so closely intertwined that in the immense majority of cases a straight-dealing man who by his efficiency, by his ingenuity and industry, benefits himself must also benefit others. Normally the man of great productive capacity who becomes rich by guiding the labor of other men does so by enabling them to produce more than they could produce without his guidance; and both he and they share in the benefit, which comes also to the public at large. The superficial fact that the sharing may be unequal must never blind us to the underlying fact that there is this sharing, and that the benefit comes in some degree to each man involved.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) US President (1901-1909)
Fifth Message to Congress (5 Dec 1905)
What a country wants to make it richer is never consumption, but production. Where there is the latter, we may be sure that there is no want of the former. To produce, implies that the producer desires to consume; why else should he give himself useless labor? He may not wish to consume what he himself produces, but his motive for producing and selling is the desire to buy. Therefore, if the producers generally produce and sell more and more, they certainly also buy more and more.
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) English philosopher and economist
“The Consumer Theory of Prosperity” (1830)
Capitalism is about turning luxuries into necessities.
Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) American industrialist and philanthropist
(Attributed)
Science is like sex: sometimes something useful comes out, but that is not the reason we are doing it.
Richard Feynman (1918-1988) American physicist
(Attributed)
Many variations can be found for this quotation (none of them with citation); the word "Science" and "Physics" are often interchanged:As noted here, Frank Oppenheimer (a colleague of Feynman's) was quoted saying, "There's a lot of practical fruits to understanding, but it's like sex. There are practical fruits to sex, but nobody would say that's why you do it, normally." Feynman and Oppenheimer may well have collaborated on the general phrasing, or taken it from one another.
- "Science is like sex, it has its practical purposes, but that's not why we do it."
- "Science is like sex. Sometimes something useful comes out, but that is not why we are doing it."
- Physics is like sex. Sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it."
