- 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… (5,986)
- “The Lesson for Today,” A Witness Tree (1942) (5,727)
- Agamemnon, ll. 175-183 [tr. Johnston (2007)] (5,522)
- Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962) (4,850)
- “The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933) (4,613)
- “On The Conduct of Life” (1822) (3,811)
- “In Search of a Majority,” Speech,… (3,753)
- “Get a Knife, Get a Dog, but Get Rid of… (3,617)
- “The Historian as Participant,” Daedalus… (3,037)
- “Hallowed Ground” (1825) (3,002)
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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
- 3-Apr-20 - The Peter Principle (1969) | WIST on The Observer (1788).
- 3-Apr-20 - Peter's Almanac, "3 December" (1982) | WIST on (Attributed).
- 31-Mar-20 - Dave on “As O. O. McIntyre Sees It,” syndicated column (2 Jan 1937).
- 24-Mar-20 - Scott on “As O. O. McIntyre Sees It,” syndicated column (2 Jan 1937).
- 20-Mar-20 - Post, alt.fan.pratchett (14 Jun 1998) | WIST on (Attributed).
- 16-Mar-20 - Quoted in Washington Post (23 Dec 1973) | WIST on (Attributed).
Quotations about stealing
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
For de little stealin’ dey gits you in jail soon or late. For de big stealin’ dey makes you Emperor and puts you in de Hall o’ Fame when you croaks.
Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953) Irish American playwright, Nobel laureate
The Emperor Jones, 1 (1921)
Many a man is saved from being a thief by finding everything locked up.
Edgar Watson "Ed" Howe (1853-1937) American journalist and author [E. W. Howe]
Ventures in Common Sense, 4.29 (1919)
Money dishonestly acquired is never worth its cost, while a good conscience never costs as much as it is worth.
Jean-Antoine Petit-Senn (1792-1870) French-Swiss poet
Maxims and Ethical Sentences
Accepting praize that iz not our due iz not mutch better than tew be a receiver of stolen goods.
[Accepting praise that is not our due is not much better than to be a receiver of stolen goods.]
Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Everybody’s Friend, Or; Josh Billing’s Encyclopedia and Proverbial Philosophy of Wit and Humor, “Stray Children” (1874)
I do not … find fault with the accumulation of property, privided it hurts nobody, but unjust acquisition of it is always to be avoided.
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) Roman orator, statesman, philosopher
De Officiis, 1.08 [tr. Miller (1913)]
