- 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… (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 • Goethe, Johann von • 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 • 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 risk-averse
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
A timid man sees dangers that do not exist.
Publilius Syrus (d. 42 BC) Assyrian slave, writer, philosopher [less correctly Publius Syrus]
Sententiae [Moral Sayings], # 688 [tr. Lyman (1862)]
The more men have to lose, the less willing they are to venture.
Thomas Paine (1737-1809) American political philosopher and writer
Common Sense, “Of the Present Ability of America” (14 Feb 1776)
And, to conclude, he that leaveth nothing to Chance will do few things ill, but he will do very few things.
George Savile, Marquis of Halifax (1633-1695) English politician and essayist
“Of Caution and Suspicion,” Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections (1750)
(Source)
Sometimes incorrectly attributed to Edward Wood, Earl of Halifax (1881-1959).
He that will not sail till all Dangers are over, must never put out to Sea.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English writer, physician
Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs, #2353 (1732)
(Source)
