- 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.
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Popular Quotables
- “Wealth and Poverty,” speech, National… (5,776)
- “The Lesson for Today,” A Witness Tree (1942) (5,670)
- Agamemnon, ll. 175-183 [tr. Johnston (2007)] (5,451)
- Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962) (4,826)
- “The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933) (4,502)
- “In Search of a Majority,” Speech,… (3,718)
- “On The Conduct of Life” (1822) (3,610)
- “Get a Knife, Get a Dog, but Get Rid of… (3,553)
- “The Historian as Participant,” Daedalus… (2,986)
- “Hallowed Ground” (1825) (2,985)
Most Quoted Authors
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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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- 17-Jan-20 - (Attributed) | WIST on The Screw-Tape Letters, #29 (1942).
- 7-Jan-20 - "Your Future As A Writer," Writer's Digest (May 1986) | WIST on The Outline of History, Vol. 2, ch. 41, sec. 4 (1921).
- 23-Dec-19 - Chamblee54 on Last written note.
- 16-Dec-19 - Dave on Authors.
- 20-Nov-19 - Debbie on Authors.
- 14-Oct-19 - Address to the Massachusetts legislature (9 Jan 1961) | WIST on Luke 12:48 (NIV).
Quotations about status
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
Anxiety is the handmaiden of contemporary ambition.
The tyrant grinds down his slaves and they don’t turn against him, they crush those beneath them.
Emily Brontë (1818-1848) British novelist, poet [pseud. Ellis Bell]
Wuthering Heights, ch. 11 [Heathcliff] (1847)
(Source)
All the pieces wish to be, if not a player, at least the piece the players are most concerned with.
Steven Brust (b. 1955) American writer, systems programmer
Dragon (1998)
He is not well-bred, that cannot bear Ill-Breeding in others.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher
Poor Richard’s Almanack (1748)
Men are more ready to sacrifice their lives than their livelihood: and to sacrifice their own importance often comes hardest of all.
B. H. Liddell Hart (1895-1970) English soldier, military historian (Basil Henry Liddell Hart)
Thoughts on War, ch. 10 (1944)
To assert dignity is to lose it.
Rex Stout (1886-1975) American writer
The League of Frightened Men, ch. 4 [Wolfe] (1935)
