1940s

Explore 416 quotes from the 1940s

The history of failure in war can almost be summed up in two words: too late.

Douglas MacArthur

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Topic

Military strategy War

Speaker

Douglas MacArthur

Medium

Speech

Language

English

Time

1940 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

MacArthur, Douglas. Statement on aid to Great Britain. 16 Sept. 1940.

Truth-loving Persians do not dwell upon
The trivial skirmish fought near Marathon.

Robert Graves

The Persian Version

Read this poem at allpoetry.com

More information about this quote

Topic

Different perspectives

Author

Robert Graves

Source

The Persian Version

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1946 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Graves, Robert. "The Persian Version." Poems 1938-1945: Satires and Grotesques. Cassell & Company, 1946, I. 1.

Good and evil, right and wrong were invented for the ordinary average man, the inferior man, because he needs them.

Rope

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Topic

Right and wrong Good and evil Morality Middle class values

Speaker

Brandon

Actor

John Dall

Source

Rope

Genre

Psychological thriller (film) Thriller (film) Psychological thriller Thriller

Language

English

Time

1948 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Rope. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Transatlantic Pictures, 1948.

Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

Susan Ertz

More information about this quote

Topic

Spending time Rainy days Sunday Eternal life

Author

Susan Ertz

Source

Anger in the Sky

Medium

Novel

Statement Type

Paradox

Language

English

Time

1943 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Ertz, Susan. Anger in the Sky. Harper & Brothers/Hodder & Stoughton, 1943.

Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.

Viktor Frankl

Man's Search for Meaning

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More information about this quote

Topic

Meaning of life Life The human condition

Author

Viktor Frankl

Source

Man's Search for Meaning

Genre

Autobiography and memoir

Language

German

Time

1946 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Frankl, Victor. …trotzdem Ja zum Leben sagen: Ein Psychologe erlebt das Konzentrationslager [Man's Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy]. Verlag für Jugend und Volk, 1946.

Current Citation

Frankl, Victor. Man's Search for Meaning. Beacon Press, 2006.

Freedom, though it has brought him independence and rationality, has made him isolated and, thereby, anxious and powerless.

Erich Fromm

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More information about this quote

Topic

Downsides of freedom Modern life

Author

Erich Fromm

Source

Escape from Freedom

Genre

Psychological literature

Language

English

Time

1941 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Fromm, Erich. Escape from Freedom. Farrar & Rinehart, 1941, foreword.

You know very well that love is, above all, the gift of oneself!

Jean Anouilh

More information about this quote

Topic

Nature of love Selflessness Love

Speaker

Countess

Author

Jean Anouilh

Source

Ardèle ou la Marguerite

Medium

Play

Language

French

Time

1948 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Anouilh, Jean. Ardèle ou la Marguerite. Directed by Roland Piétri. 1948, Comédie des Champs-Élysées, Paris, France.

Current Citation

Anouilh, Jean. "Ardele." Jean Anouilh: Five Plays. Vol. 2, Hill & Wang, 1966.

People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls.

Carl Jung

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Topic

Facing oneself Existential terror Self-knowledge Distraction Human nature

Author

Carl Jung

Source

Psychology and Alchemy

Genre

Psychological literature

Language

German

Time

1944 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Jung, Carl. Psychologie un Alchemie [Psychology and Alchemy] Routledge, 1944.

The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.

Henry Miller

More information about this quote

Topic

Purpose of life

Author

Henry Miller

Language

English

Time

1941 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Miller, Henry. "Creative Death." The Wisdom of the Heart. New Directions Books, 1941.

Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.

Reinhold Niebuhr

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Topic

Democracy Political theory Human nature Politics

Author

Reinhold Niebuhr

Source

The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness

Genre

Political literature

Language

English

Time

1944 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Niebuhr, Reinhold. The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1944.

Work liberates.

Anonymous

Words inscribed on the gates of Dachau concentration camp, 1933, and subsequently on those of Auschwitz.

More information about this quote

Topic

Work

Author

Anonymous

Medium

Inscription

Language

German

Time

1940 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Inscription. Appears over the entrance of various Nazi Germany concentration camps. c. 1940.

I pray you to believe what I have said about Buchenwald. I have reported what I saw and heard, but only part of it. For most of it I have no words.

Edward R. Murrow

More information about this quote

Topic

The Holocaust Limits of language

Speaker

Edward R. Murrow

Medium

Radio broadcast

Language

English

Time

1945 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Murrow, Edward R. Broadcast report on Buchenwald concentration camp. 15 Apr. 1945, London, England, UK. Radio broadcast.

Luck, if you will, is something you work for, and the harder you work the more luck you have.

Esther Eberstadt Brooke

More information about this quote

Topic

Luck Hard work

Author

Esther Eberstadt Brooke

Language

English

Time

1940 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Brooke, Esther Eberstadt. Career Clinic: The Answer to Your Job Problem. Farrar & Rinehart, 1940, pt. 3, ch. 2.

We are now brought face to face with a tyranny which holds out the threat of becoming, thanks to "the conquest of nature" and in particular of human nature, what no earlier tyranny ever became: perpetual and universal.

Leo Strauss

More information about this quote

Topic

Soviet Union Cold War Totalitarianism

Author

Leo Strauss

Source

On Tyranny

Genre

Philosophical literature

Language

English

Time

1948 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Strauss, Leo. On Tyranny: An Interpretation of Xenophon's Hiero. The Free Press, 1948.

Either this man was, and is, the son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But don't let us come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He hasn't left that open to us. He didn't intend to.

C.S. Lewis

On Jesus.

More information about this quote

Topic

Jesus

Speaker

C.S. Lewis

Medium

Radio broadcast

Language

English

Time

1942 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Lewis, C. S. "The Shocking Alternative." 1942, Broadcasting House, London, England, UK. Radio broadcast.

Current Citation

Lewis, C. S. "The Shocking Alternative." Mere Christianity. HarperOne, 2015.

Don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself.

Viktor Frankl

Man's Search for Meaning

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Topic

Success Dedication Happiness

Author

Viktor Frankl

Source

Man's Search for Meaning

Genre

Autobiography and memoir

Statement Type

Paradox

Language

German

Time

1946 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Frankl, Victor. …trotzdem Ja zum Leben sagen: Ein Psychologe erlebt das Konzentrationslager [Man's Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy]. Verlag für Jugend und Volk, 1946.

Current Citation

Frankl, Victor. Man's Search for Meaning. Beacon Press, 2006.

What, then, does the Negro want? His answer is very simple. He wants only what all Americans want. He wants opportunity to make real what the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights say, what the Four Freedoms establish. While he knows these ideals are open to no man completely, he wants only his equal chance to obtain them.

Mary McLeod Bethune

More information about this quote

Topic

Civil rights Equality of opportunity

Author

Mary McLeod Bethune

Source

Certain Unalienable Rights

Medium

Essay

Language

English

Time

1944 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Bethune, Mary McLeod. "Certain Unalienable Rights." What the Negro Wants, edited by Rayford Logan. University of North Carolina Press, 1944.

You know, the worst ain't so bad when it finally happens. Not half as bad as you figure it'll be before it's happened.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

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More information about this quote

Topic

Fear Anticipation

Speaker

Curtin

Actor

Tim Holt

Source

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Medium

Film

Genre

Western (film) Western

Language

English

Time

1948 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Directed by John Huston, Warner Bros.-First National, 1948.

Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best; it removes all that is base.

George S. Patton

More information about this quote

Topic

War

Speaker

George S. Patton

Medium

Speech

Genre

Military speech

Language

English

Time

1944 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 2

Citation

Patton, George Smith. Address to the troops. 5 June 1944, England, UK.

The true call of the desert, of the mountains, or the sea, is their silence-free of the network of dead speech.

Freya Stark

More information about this quote

Topic

Wilderness Solitude Silence

Author

Freya Stark

Source

Perseus in the Wind

Genre

Autobiography and memoir

Statement Type

Man and nature

Language

English

Time

1948 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Stark, Freya. Perseus in the Wind. London: John Murray, 1948, ch. 1.