1900s

Explore 234 quotes from the 1900s

Instead of holding a position of independence, between the wealthy and the people, prepared to curb the excesses of either, able lawyers have, to a large extent, allowed themselves to become adjuncts of great corporations and have neglected the obligation to use their powers for the protection of the people. We hear much of the "corporation lawyer," and far too little of the "people's lawyer."

Louis Brandeis

More information about this quote

Topic

Lawyers

Speaker

Louis Brandeis

Medium

Speech

Language

English

Time

1905 1900s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Brandeis, Louis D. "The Opportunity in the Law." Harvard Ethical Society meeting. 4 May 1905, Phillips Brooks House, Cambridge, MA, USA.

Current Citation

Brandeis, Louis D. "The Opportunity in the Law" Brandeis on Democracy, edited by Philippa Strum. University Press of Kansas, 1994.

The important thing in life is not the victory but the contest; the essential thing is not to have won but to have fought well.

Baron Pierre de Coubertin

More information about this quote

Topic

Winning

Speaker

Baron Pierre de Coubertin

Medium

Speech

Language

French

Time

1908 1900s 20th century

Authentication Score 2

Citation

De Coubertin, Pierre. Banquet given by the British Government. 24 July 1908, Grafton Galleries, London, England, UK.

The day of small nations has long passed away. The day of Empires has come.

Joseph Chamberlain

More information about this quote

Topic

Imperialism

Speaker

Joseph Chamberlain

Medium

Speech

Genre

Political speech

Language

English

Time

1904 1900s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Chamberlain, Joseph. Quoted in The Times. 13 May 1904. Originally spoken during a speech on 12 May 1904, Birmingham, England, UK.

The moral flabbiness born of the exclusive worship of the bitch-goddess success. That-with the squalid cash interpretation put on the word success-is our national disease.

William James

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Topic

Success Love of money

Author

William James

Medium

Letter

Language

English

Time

1906 1900s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

James, William. Letter to H. G. Wells. 11 Sept. 1906.

Ah, this, that we call happiness, how intimate a part of the soul it is, and of what little importance are the outside elements which seem to go to its making!

Andre Gide

More information about this quote

Topic

Happiness

Author

Andre Gide

Source

Strait is the Gate

Medium

Novel

Language

French

Time

1909 1900s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Gide, Andre. La Porte Etroite [Strait is the Gate]. Mercure de France, 1909, ch. 5.

Current Citation

Gide, Andre. Strait is the Gate. Penguin Books, 2001, ch. 5.

Writers the most learned, the most accurate in details, and the soundest in tendency, frequently fall into a habit which can neither be cured nor pardoned-the habit of making history into the proof of their theories.

Lord Acton

More information about this quote

Topic

Confirmation bias

Author

Lord Acton

Genre

Historical literature

Language

English

Time

1907 1900s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Lord Acton. "Mr. Goldwin Smith's Irish History." The History of Freedom and Other Essays. Macmillan, 1907.

It has often been said, very truly, that religion is the thing that makes the ordinary man feel extraordinary; it is an equally important truth that religion is the thing that makes the extraordinary man feel ordinary.

G.K. Chesterton

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Topic

Religion

Author

G.K. Chesterton

Source

Charles Dickens: A Critical Study

Language

English

Time

1906 1900s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Chesterton, G.K. Charles Dickens: A Critical Study. Dodd Mead & Company, 1906, ch. 1.

They have invented a phrase, a phrase that is a black and white contradiction in two words—"free-love"—as if a lover ever had been, or ever could be, free. It is the nature of love to bind itself, and the institution of marriage merely paid the average man the compliment of taking him at his word.

G.K. Chesterton

More information about this quote

Topic

Casual sex Sex Commitment (relationships)

Author

G.K. Chesterton

Source

A Defence of Rash Vows The Defendant

Language

English

Time

1901 1900s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Chesterton, G.K. "The Defendant." The Wit, Whimsy and Wisdom of G.K. Chesterton. Vol. 6, Coachwhip Publications, 2009. Originally published by R. Brinley Johnson, 1901, introduction.

It is always easier to believe than to deny. Our minds are naturally affirmative.

John Burroughs

More information about this quote

Topic

The mind

Author

John Burroughs

Genre

Religious literature Philosophical literature

Language

English

Time

1900 1900s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Burroughs, John. "The Modern Skeptic." The Light of Day. Houghton Mifflin, 1900.

Man, biologically considered, and whatever else he may be in the bargain, is simply the most formidable of all the beasts of prey, and, indeed, the only one that preys systematically on its own species.

William James

More information about this quote

Topic

Man's cruelty to man Man and animals Nature of man

Author

William James

Medium

Speech

Language

English

Time

1904 1900s 20th century

Authentication Score 2

Citation

James, William. "Remarks At The Peace Banquet." Atlantic Monthly, Dec. 1904. Originally remarks at the world peace banquet. 7 Oct. 1904, Boston, MA, USA.

God gave me my money. I believe the power to make money is a gift from God... I believe it is my duty to make money and still more money and to use the money I make for the good of my fellow man according to the dictates of my conscience.

John D. Rockefeller

More information about this quote

Topic

Charity

Speaker

John D. Rockefeller

Medium

Interview

Language

English

Time

1905 1900s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Rockefeller, John Davison. Interviewed by William Hoster. c. 1905.

Current Citation

Rockefeller, John Davison. Quoted in The Rockefellers: An American dynasty, written by Peter Collier and David Horowitz. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1976, ch. 3.

It's a sort of bloom on a woman. If you have it, you don't need to have anything else; and if you don't have it, it doesn't much matter what else you have.

J.M. Barrie

On charm.

More information about this quote

Topic

Charm

Speaker

Maggie Wylie

Author

J.M. Barrie

Source

What Every Woman Knows

Medium

Play

Language

English

Time

1908 1900s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Barrie, J. M. What Every Woman Knows. 3 Sept. 1908, Duke of York's Theatre, London, England, UK, act 1.

Cure yourself of the condition of bothering about how you look to other people. Concern yourself only with how you appear to God, with the idea that God has of you.

Miguel de Unamuno

More information about this quote

Topic

What other people think Relationship with God God and man

Author

Miguel de Unamuno

Source

Our Lord Don Quixote

Language

Spanish

Time

1905 1900s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

De Unamuno, Miguel. "El Sepulcro de Don Quijote [The Sepulcher of Don Quixote]." Vida de Don Quijote Y Sancho [The Life of Don Quixote and Sancho]. Madrid: Renacimiento, 1914, foreward.

Ethnocentrism is the...view of things in which one's own group is the center of everything, and all others are scaled and rated with reference to it...Each group nourishes its own pride and vanity, boasts itself superior, exalts its own divinities, and looks with contempt on outsiders.

William Graham Sumner

Folkways

Read Folkways at Project Gutenberg

More information about this quote

Topic

Ethnocentrism Us vs. them

Author

William Graham Sumner

Source

Folkways

Genre

Sociology

Language

English

Time

1906 1900s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Sumner, William Graham. Folkways: A Study of Mores, Manners, Customs and Morals. Ginn & Company, 1906, ch. 1.

In reality there are as many religions as there are individuals.

Mahatma Gandhi

More information about this quote

Topic

Diversity of religion Religion

Author

Mahatma Gandhi

Source

Hind Swaraj

Genre

Anti-colonial literature

Language

Gujarati

Time

1909 1900s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Gandhi, Mahatma. "Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule." Indian Opinion, 1909

Current Citation

Gandhi, Mahatma. "Hind Swaraj." Gandhi: "Hind Swaraj" and Other Writings, edited by Anthony J. Parel. Cambridge University Press, 2009.

We believe that out of the public school grows the greatness of a nation.

Mark Twain

More information about this quote

Topic

Public education Education

Speaker

Mark Twain

Source

Public Education Association

Medium

Speech

Language

English

Time

1900 1900s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Twain, Mark. "Public Education Association." 23 Nov. 1900, Berkeley Lyceum, New York, NY, USA.

The highest result of education is tolerance.

Helen Keller

More information about this quote

Topic

Effects of education Education

Author

Helen Keller

Source

Optimism

Medium

Essay

Language

English

Time

1903 1900s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Keller, Helen. Optimism. T. Y. Crowell and Company, 1903, pt. 2.

Current Citation

Keller, Helen. "Optimism." The World I Live In and Optimism: A Collection of Essays. Dover Publications, 2010, pt. 2.

Modern life is both complex and intense, and the tremendous changes wrought by the extraordinary industrial development of the last half century are felt in every fiber of our social and political being.

Theodore Roosevelt

Second Inaugural Address of Theodore Roosevelt

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

Modern life Economic development Change

Speaker

Theodore Roosevelt

Source

Second Inaugural Address of Theodore Roosevelt Presidential inaugural address

Medium

Speech

Genre

Political speech

Language

English

Time

1905 1900s 20th century

Authentication Score 2

Citation

Roosevelt, Theodore. "Second Inaugural Address." 4 Mar. 1905, East Portico, US Capitol Building, Washington, DC, USA.

Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is the lightning that does the work.

Mark Twain

More information about this quote

Topic

Thunder Lightning Appearance vs. reality

Author

Mark Twain

Source

Letters of Mark Twain

Medium

Letter

Language

English

Time

1908 1900s 20th century

Authentication Score 2

Citation

Twain, Mark. Letter to an unidentified person. 28 Aug. 1908.

I hope you will not have a building of any kind, not a summer cottage, a hotel or anything else, to mar the wonderful grandeur, sublimity, the great loneliness and beauty of the canyon. Leave it as it is.

Theodore Roosevelt

More information about this quote

Topic

Conservation

Author

Theodore Roosevelt

Medium

Speech

Language

English

Time

1903 1900s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Roosevelt, Theodore, Jr. Speech at the Grand Canyon. 6 May 1903, The Grand Canyon, AZ, USA.

Current Citation

Roosevelt, Theodore, Jr. "The Natural Wonder of the Grand Canyon." Great Speeches of the 20th Century, edited by Bob Blaisdell. Dover Publications, 2011.