- 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.
- 17,903 quotes and counting ...
Quote Search
Authors
Topic Cloud
action age America author beauty belief change character Christianity death democracy education ego error evil faith fear freedom future God government happiness history humanity integrity justice leadership liberty life love morality perspective politics power progress religion science society success truth 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… (7,893)
- Agamemnon, ll. 175-183 [tr. Johnston (2007)] (6,021)
- “The Lesson for Today,” A Witness Tree (1942) (5,947)
- “The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933) (5,108)
- Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962) (4,888)
- “On The Conduct of Life” (1822) (4,273)
- “In Search of a Majority,” Speech,… (3,930)
- “Get a Knife, Get a Dog, but Get Rid of… (3,751)
- Letter to Clara Rilke (1 Jan 1907) (3,580)
- “A Cult of Ignorance,” Newsweek (21 Jan 1980) (3,465)
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
- 18-Jan-21 - "The Christian Way of Life in Human Relations," speech, General Assembly fo the National Council of Churches, St Louis (4 Dec 1957) | WIST on Letter from Birmingham Jail (16 Apr 1963).
- 8-Jan-21 - ***Dave Does the Blog on Speech to the electors of Bristol (3 Nov 1774).
- 4-Jan-21 - Doing the Numbers, 12/2020 | WIST on Republic, Book 1, 347c.
- 4-Jan-21 - Doing the Numbers, 12/2020 | WIST on “On The Conduct of Life” (1822).
- 4-Jan-21 - Doing the Numbers, 12/2020 | WIST on Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962).
- 4-Jan-21 - Doing the Numbers, 12/2020 | WIST on Letter to Clara Rilke (1 Jan 1907).
Quotations about reformer
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
Since the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to allow them liberty, how comes it to pass that the tendencies of organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their agents form a part of the human race? Do they consider that they are composed of different materials from the rest of mankind? They say that society, when left to itself, rushes to inevitable destruction, because its instincts are perverse. They presume to stop it in its downward course, and to give it a better direction. They have, therefore, received from heaven, intelligence and virtues that place them beyond and above mankind: let them show their title to this superiority.
Frédéric Bastiat (1801-1850) French philosopher, economist, politician
The Law (1850)
(Source)
Alt. trans.: "If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind? The organizers maintain that society, when left undirected, rushes headlong to its inevitable destruction because the instincts of the people are so perverse. The legislators claim to stop this suicidal course and to give it a saner direction. Apparently, then, the legislators and the organizers have received from Heaven an intelligence and virtue that place them beyond and above mankind; it so, let them show their titles to this superiority." [Source]
Terrorism set up by reformers may be just as bad as Government terrorism and it is often worse because it draws a certain amount of false sympathy.
Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits.
The self-styled reformers, the greatest bores of all.
No tendency is quite so strong in human nature as the desire to lay down rules of conduct for other people.
[The reformer] wants his conscience to be your guide.
The best reformers the world haz ever seen are thoze who commense on themselves.
[The best reformers the world has ever seen are those who commence on themselves.]
Reforms and discoveries are like offenses; they must needs come, but woe unto that man through whom they come.
The first thing men do when they have renounced pleasure, through decency, lassitude, or for the sake of health, is to condemn it in others. Such conduct denotes a kind of latent affection for the very things they left off; they would like no one to enjoy a pleasure they can no longer indulge in; and thus they show their feelings of jealousy.