- 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.
- 16,742 quotes and counting ...
Quote Search
Authors
Topic Cloud
action age America belief books change character Christianity creation death democracy education ego evil faith fear freedom future God government happiness history honesty humanity integrity justice leadership liberty life love morality perspective politics poverty power 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
- “The Lesson for Today,” A Witness Tree (1942) (5,595)
- “Wealth and Poverty,” speech, National… (5,542)
- Agamemnon, ll. 175-183 [tr. Johnston (2007)] (5,398)
- Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962) (4,810)
- “The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933) (4,349)
- “In Search of a Majority,” Speech,… (3,655)
- “Get a Knife, Get a Dog, but Get Rid of… (3,476)
- “On The Conduct of Life” (1822) (3,217)
- “Hallowed Ground” (1825) (2,937)
- “The Historian as Participant,” Daedalus… (2,730)
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
- 30-Sep-19 - Chamblee54 on Poor Richard’s Almanack (1755).
- 23-Sep-19 - Chamblee54 on A Course of Popular Lectures, Lecture 3, “Of the more Important Divisions and Essential Parts of Knowledge” (1829).
- 5-Sep-19 - Erewhon, ch. 20 (1872) | WIST on 1 Timothy 6:10 (KJV).
- 4-Sep-19 - "Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution," sermon, National Cathedral, Washington, DC (31 Mar 1968) | WIST on Letter from Birmingham Jail (16 Apr 1963).
- 16-Aug-19 - Dave on About WIST.
- 13-Aug-19 - Mike Hardy on About WIST.
Quotations about technology
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
Charles "Charlie" Stross (b. 1964) British writer
The Nightmare Stacks, ch. 18 (2016)
(Source)
A variant of Clarke's Third Law.
As the man put it: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Any sufficiently advanced alien intelligence is indistinguishable from God — the angry monotheistic sadist subtype. And the elder ones … aren’t friendly. (See? I told you I’d rather be an atheist!)
Computational demonology adds a new and unwelcome meaning to terms like “memory leak” and “debugger.”
Charles "Charlie" Stross (b. 1964) British writer
The Jennifer Morgue (2006)
The law of unintended consequences governs all technological revolutions.
Joel L. Swerdlow (contemp.) American author, editor, researcher, educator
“Information REvolution,” National Geographic (Oct 1995)
A common issue with SF settings is that causally disconnected civilizations nevertheless are close enough in technological development that conflict is possible, rather than it being a matter of laser cannons against a thin film of single celled organisms.
James Nicoll (b. 1961) Canadian reviewer, editor
“Because My Tears are Delicious to You 5,” rec.arts.sf.written, Usenet (30 Jun 2014)
(Source)
It demonstrated that old adage: never bring a gun to a fight where the other guy has a time-machine and tomorrow’s newspapers.
James Nicoll (b. 1961) Canadian reviewer, editor
“OTT: If ye break faith with us who die,” rec.arts.sf.written, Usenet (27 Apr 2006)
(Source)
It’s important to remember that the relationship between different media tends to be complementary. When new media arrive they don’t necessarily replace or eradicate previous types. Though we should perhaps observe a half second silence for the eight-track. — There that’s done. What usually happens is that older media have to shuffle about a bit to make space for the new one and its particular advantages. Radio did not kill books and television did not kill radio or movies — what television did kill was the cinema newsreel.
Douglas Adams (1952-2001) English writer
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Future (2001)
The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, orator
Strength to Love, 7.3 (1963)
If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside.
Robert X. Cringely (contemp.) American technology columnist [pseud. for Mark Stephens and others]
“Notes from the Field,” InfoWorld (6 Mar 1989)
It is my heart-warm and world-embracing Christmas hope and aspiration that all of us — the high, the low, the rich, the poor, the admired, the despised, the loved, the hated, the civilized, the savage — may eventually be gathered together in a heaven of everlasting rest and peace and bliss — except the inventor of the telephone.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Letter to the Editor of the New York World (23 Dec 1890)
(Source)
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008) British writer
Profiles of the Future, “Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination” (Clarke’s Third Law) (1962; rev. 1973)
