1880s

Explore 180 quotes from the 1880s

A community where law is the rule of conduct and where courts, not mobs, execute its penalties is the only attractive field for business investments and honest labor.

Benjamin Harrison

Inaugural Address of Benjamin Harrison

Buy a book containing this speech at Amazon Buy a book containing this speech at Amazon
Read this speech at UVA's Miller Center website

More information about this quote

Topic

Rule of law

Speaker

Benjamin Harrison

Source

Inaugural Address of Benjamin Harrison Presidential inaugural address

Medium

Speech

Genre

Political speech

Language

English

Time

1889 1880s 19th century

Authentication Score 2

Citation

Harrison, Benjamin. "Inaugural Address." 4 Mar. 1889, East Portico, US Capitol Building, Washington, DC, USA.

That which in England we call the middle class is in America virtually the nation.

Matthew Arnold

A Word About America

More information about this quote

Topic

England and America America Middle class

Author

Matthew Arnold

Source

A Word About America

Language

English

Time

1882 1880s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Arnold, Matthew. "A Word About America." The Nineteenth Century. London: Kegan Paul, May 1882.

Oh, what a day-to-day business life is.

Jules Laforgue

More information about this quote

Topic

Nature of life Spending time Passage of time Life

Author

Jules Laforgue

Source

Les Complaintes

Medium

Poem

Language

French

Time

1885 1880s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Laforgue, Jules. "Complainte sur certains ennuis." Les Complaintes. Paris: Léon Vanier, 1885.

I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you–Nobody–Too?
Then there's a pair of us?
Don't tell! they'd advertise–you know!
How dreary–to be–Somebody!
How public–like a Frog–
To tell one's name–the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!

Emily Dickinson

Read I'm Nobody! Who are you? at Project Gutenberg

More information about this quote

Topic

Anonymity

Author

Emily Dickinson

Source

I'm Nobody! Who are you? Poems by Emily Dickinson: Second Series

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1886 1880s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Dickinson, Emily. "I'm Nobody! Who are you?" Poems by Emily Dickinson: Second Series. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1891, I. 1.

Current Citation

Dickinson, Emily. "I'm Nobody! Who are you?" Emily Dickinson’s Poems: As She Preserved Them, edited by Cristanne Miller. Belknap Press, 2016, I. 1.

Falling in love is the one illogical adventure, the one thing of which we are tempted to think as supernatural, in our trite and reasonable world.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Read Virginibus Puerisque at Project Gutenberg

More information about this quote

Topic

Falling in love Love

Author

Robert Louis Stevenson

Source

Virginibus Puerisque

Medium

Essay

Language

English

Time

1881 1880s 19th century

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Stevenson, Robert Louis. "Virginibus Puerisque III: On Falling in Love." Virginibus Puerisque, and Other Papers. London: C. Kegan Paul & Co., 1881.

Current Citation

Stevenson, Robert Louis. "On Falling in Love." Essays I: Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers, edited by Robert-Louis Abrahamson. Edinburgh University Press, 2018.

War appears to be as old as mankind, but peace is a modern invention.

Henry Maine

More information about this quote

Topic

War and peace War Peace

Author

Henry Maine

Medium

Lecture

Language

English

Time

1887 1880s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Maine, Henry. "International Law: Its Origin and Sources." Whewell Lecture. 1887, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England, UK.

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
Sailed off in a wooden shoe-
Sailed on a river of crystal light,
Into a sea of dew.

Eugene Field

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod

Buy Wynken, Blynken, & Nod at Amazon Buy Wynken, Blynken, & Nod at Amazon
Read Wynken, Blynken, and Nod at Poetry Foundation

More information about this quote

Topic

Sleep Adventure

Author

Eugene Field

Source

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod

Medium

Poem

Genre

Children's literature

Statement Type

Metaphor, analogy and simile

Language

English

Time

1889 1880s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Field, Eugene. Dutch Lullaby. 1889, I. 1.

Current Citation

Field, Eugene. Wynken, Blynken, & Nod. North-South Books, 1998, I. 1.

The privileges of American citizenship are so great and its duties so grave that we may well insist upon a good knowledge of every person applying for citizenship and a good knowledge by him of our institutions. We should not cease to be hospitable to immigration, but we should cease to be careless as to the character of it.

Benjamin Harrison

Inaugural Address of Benjamin Harrison

Buy a book containing this speech at Amazon Buy a book containing this speech at Amazon
Read this speech at UVA's Miller Center website

More information about this quote

Topic

Citizenship Immigration Civic duty

Speaker

Benjamin Harrison

Source

Inaugural Address of Benjamin Harrison Presidential inaugural address

Medium

Speech

Genre

Political speech

Language

English

Time

1889 1880s 19th century

Authentication Score 2

Citation

Harrison, Benjamin. "Inaugural Address." 4 Mar. 1889, East Portico, US Capitol Building, Washington, DC, USA.

People say the native stands on the edge of a chasm. It is not he who stands on the edge of a chasm; his claims are not false. They are just... Every step the Indian takes is based on a profound sense of fairness.

Louis Riel

More information about this quote

Topic

Native Americans

Author

Louis Riel

Medium

Personal journal

Language

French

Time

1885 1880s 19th century

Authentication Score 1

Original Citation

Riel, Louis. Diary entry. 6 May 1885.

Current Citation

Riel, Louis. The Diaries of Louis Riel, edited by Thomas Flanagan. Hurtig, 1976.

The heart gets tired too; and it falls apart bit by bit, like an old cloth wears out in the wash.

Giovanni Verga

More information about this quote

Topic

Tired heart The heart

Speaker

Marizza la Longa

Author

Giovanni Verga

Source

The House by the Medlar Tree

Medium

Novel

Language

Italian

Time

1881 1880s 19th century

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Verga, Giovanni. I Malavoglia. Italy, 1881, ch. 11.

Current Citation

Verga, Giovanni. The House by the Medlar Tree, translated by Raymond Rosenthal. University of California Press, 1984, ch. 11.

These are my politics: to change what we can; to better what we can; but still to bear in mind that man is but a devil weakly fettered by some generous beliefs and impositions; and for no word however nobly sounding, and no cause however just and pious, to relax the stricture of these bonds.

Robert Louis Stevenson

More information about this quote

Topic

Politics and human nature Human nature Political theory

Author

Robert Louis Stevenson

Language

English

Time

1885 1880s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Stevenson, Robert Louis and Fanny Stevenson. "Epilogue of the Cigar Divan." More New Arabian Nights: The Dynamiter. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1885.

That great business of ours, of learning how to be, to do, to do without, and to depart.

John Viscount Morley

More information about this quote

Topic

How to live The human condition

Speaker

John Viscount Morley

Language

English

Time

1887 1880s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Morley, John. "Aphorisms." 11 Nov. 1887, The Edinburgh Philosophical Institution, Edinburgh, Scotland. Address.

There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men. Imagine a congress of eminent celebrities such as More, Bacon, Grotius, Pascal, Cromwell, Bossuet, Montesquieu, Jefferson, Napoleon, Pitt, etc. The results would be an Encyclopedia of Error.

Lord Acton

More information about this quote

Topic

Bad ideas Truth and error

Author

Lord Acton

Medium

Letter

Language

English

Time

1881 1880s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Lord Acton. Letter to Mary Gladstone. 24 Apr. 1881.

Science is nothing but trained and organized common sense, differing from the latter only as a veteran may differ from a raw recruit: and its methods differ from those of common sense only as far as the guardsman's cut and thrust differ from the manner in which a savage wields his club.

T.H. Huxley

More information about this quote

Topic

Science

Author

T.H. Huxley

Source

On the Method of Zadig

Medium

Essay

Genre

Scientific literature

Language

English

Time

1880 1880s 19th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Huxley, Thomas Henry. "The Method of Zadig." 1880, Working Men's College, London, England, UK. Lecture.

The government of cities is the one conspicuous failure of the United States.

James Bryce

The American Commonwealth

More information about this quote

Topic

City politics America

Author

James Bryce

Source

The American Commonwealth

Genre

Political literature

Language

English

Time

1888 1880s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Bryce, James. The American Commonwealth. Vol. 1, London: Macmillan and Co., 1888, ch. 51.

We seem, as it were, to have conquered and peopled half the world in a fit of absence of mind.

John Seeley

More information about this quote

Topic

Imperialism

Author

John Seeley

Medium

Lecture

Language

English

Time

1881 1880s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Seeley, John. "Tendency in English History." 1881, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England, UK. Lecture.

I shall never marry; I regard that now as an established fact, and on the whole a very respectable one; I am both happy enough and miserable enough, as it is, and don't wish to add to either side of the account.

Henry James

More information about this quote

Topic

Single life Marriage Relationships

Author

Henry James

Source

Letters of Henry James

Medium

Letter

Language

English

Time

1884 1880s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

James, Henry. Letter to Grace Norton. 3 Nov. 1884.

Current Citation

James, Henry. "November 3 [1883] To Grace Norton." The Complete Letters of Henry James, 1883–1884, edited by Michael Anesko and Greg W. Zacharias. Vol. 2, University of Nebraska Press, 2019.

I say you ought to get rich, and it is your duty to get rich... Money is power, and you ought to be reasonably ambitious to have it! You ought because you can do more good with it than you could without it.

Russell H. Conwell

More information about this quote

Topic

Wealth

Speaker

Russell H. Conwell

Medium

Lecture

Language

English

Time

1882 1880s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Conwell, Russell H. "Acres of Diamonds." Chautauqua circuit. c. 1882. Lecture.

Money is indeed the most important thing in the world; and all sound and successful personal and national morality should have this fact for its basis.

George Bernard Shaw

More information about this quote

Topic

Importance of money Money

Author

George Bernard Shaw

Source

The Irrational Knot Our Corner

Medium

Novel

Language

English

Time

1887 1880s 19th century

Authentication Score 2

Citation

Shaw, George Bernard. "The Irrational Knot." Our Corner. 1885-1887, preface. Serial.

Many's the long night I've dreamed of cheese-toasted, mostly.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Treasure Island

More information about this quote

Topic

Cheese Food

Speaker

Ben Gunn

Author

Robert Louis Stevenson

Source

Treasure Island

Medium

Novel

Language

English

Time

1882 1880s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Stevenson, Robert Louis [published as Captain George North]. "Treasure Island or the Mutiny of the Hispaniola." Young Folks, 1881-1882. Weekly serial.

Current Citation

Stevenson, Robert Louis. Treasure Island. Signet, 2016, pt. 3, ch. 15.