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Explore 7518 quotes originally in English

I firmly disbelieve, myself, that our human experience is the highest form of experience extant in the universe. I believe rather that we stand in much the same relation to the whole of the universe as our canine and feline pets do to the whole of human life. They inhabit our drawing-rooms and libraries. They take part in scenes of whose significance they have no inkling. They are merely tangent to curves of history the beginnings and ends and forms of which pass wholly beyond their ken. So we are tangent to the wider life of things.

William James

Pragmatism

More information about this quote

Topic

Man and the universe

Author

William James

Source

Pragmatism

Genre

Philosophical speech

Language

English

Time

1906 1900s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

James, William. "Pragmatism and Religion." Dec. 1906, Lowell Institute, Boston, MA, USA. Lecture.

Current Citation

James, William. "Pragmatism and Religion." Pragmatism. Dover Publications, 2018.

I bought a donut, and they gave me a receipt for the donut. I don't need a receipt for the donut, man, I'll just give you the money, then you give me the donut—end of transaction. We don't need to bring ink and paper into this. I just can't imagine a scenario where I would have to prove that I bought a donut.

Mitch Hedberg

Strategic Grill Locations

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Topic

Donuts

Speaker

Mitch Hedberg

Source

Strategic Grill Locations

Medium

Comedy album

Genre

Comedy (stand up)

Language

English

Time

1999 1990s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Hedberg, Mitch. Strategic Grill Locations. 7 Sept. 1999, The Laff Stop Comedy Club, Houston, Texas, USA.

I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it.

Jack Handey

More information about this quote

Topic

World peace

Author

Jack Handey

Statement Type

Joke

Language

English

Time

1999 1990s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Handey, Jack. Quoted in L.A. Times. 18 Jan. 1999.

Yet I doe seriously, and upon good grounds, affirme it possible to make a flying Chariot. In which a man may sit, and give such a motion unto it, as shall convey him through the aire. And this perhaps might bee made large enough to carry divers men at the same time, together with foode for their viaticum, and commodities for traffique. It is not the bignesse of any thing in this kind, that can hinder its motion, if the motive faculty be answerable thereunto. We see a great ship swimmes as well as a small corke, and an Eagle flies in the aire as well as a little gnat... So that notwithstanding all these seeming impossibilities, 'tis likely enough, that there may be a meanes invented of journying to the Moone; And how happy shall they be, that are first successfull in this attempt?

John Wilkins

A Discourse Concerning a New World and Another Planet

More information about this quote

Topic

Airplanes

Author

John Wilkins

Source

A Discourse Concerning a New World and Another Planet

Genre

Scientific literature

Statement Type

Prophecies and predictions

Language

English

Time

1640 1640s 17th century

Authentication Score 2

Citation

Wilkins, John. A Discourse Concerning a New World and Another Planet. London: John Maynard, 1640, bk. 1, proposition 14.

I am interested in the future because I expect to spend the rest of my life in the future.

Charles F. Kettering

More information about this quote

Topic

The future

Speaker

Charles F. Kettering

Language

English

Time

1939 1930s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Kettering, Charles F. Spoken during a luncheon. Joint luncheon held by the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and the Advertising Club. July 1939, Los Angeles, CA, USA.

There is a legend about a bird which sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. From the moment it leaves the nest it searches for a thorn tree, and does not rest until it has found one. Then, singing among the savage branches, it impales itself upon the longest, sharpest spine. And, dying, it rises above its own agony to out-carol the lark and the nightingale. One superlative song, existence the price. But the whole world stills to listen, and God in His heaven smiles. For the best is only bought at the cost of great pain.

Colleen McCullough

The Thorn Birds

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Topic

Bird songs Birds

Author

Colleen McCullough

Source

The Thorn Birds

Medium

Novel

Statement Type

Paradox

Language

English

Time

1977 1970s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

McCullough, Colleen. The Thorn Birds. Harper & Row, 1977, epigraph.

Pessimism (or rather what is called such) is, in brief, playing the sure game. You cannot lose at it; you may gain. It is the only view of life in which you can never be disappointed.

Thomas Hardy

More information about this quote

Topic

Pessimism Low expectations

Author

Thomas Hardy

Medium

Personal journal

Language

English

Time

1902 1900s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Hardy, Thomas. Notebook entry. 1 Jan. 1902.

Current Citation

Hardy, Thomas. Quoted in The Poetry of Thomas Hardy: A Handbook and Commentary, written by J. O. Bailey. UNC Press Books, 2018.

Human contact seemed to her so frail a thing that the hope that two people might want each other in the same way, at the same time and with the possibility of doing something about it, seemed infinitely remote.

Margaret Drabble

The Waterfall

More information about this quote

Topic

Connecting with others

Author

Margaret Drabble

Source

The Waterfall

Medium

Novel

Language

English

Time

1969 1960s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Drabble, Margaret. The Waterfall. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1969.

If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free thought—not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

United States v. Schwimmer

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Topic

Freedom of thought Pluralism

Author

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Source

United States v. Schwimmer

Medium

Supreme Court opinion Legal opinion

Genre

Legal writing

Language

English

Time

1929 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Jr. Dissenting Opinion. United States v. Schwimmer. United States Reports, vol. 279, 27 May 1929, pp. 653-655. Justia, supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/279/644/.

When you consider that God could have commanded anything he wanted-anything!-the Ten have got to rank as one of the great missed moral opportunities of all time. How different history would have been had he clearly and unmistakably forbidden war, tyranny, taking over other people's countries, slavery, exploitation of workers, cruelty to children, wife-beating, stoning, treating women-or anyone-as chattel or inferior beings.

Katha Pollitt

Stacked Decalogue

More information about this quote

Topic

The Ten Commandments

Author

Katha Pollitt

Source

Stacked Decalogue The Nation

Medium

Magazine

Language

English

Time

2003 2000s 21st century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Pollitt, Katha. "Stacked Decalogue." The Nation, 4 Sept. 2003.

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Wilfred Owen

Dulce et Decorum Est

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More information about this quote

Topic

Horrors of war War

Author

Wilfred Owen

Source

Dulce et Decorum Est

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1920 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Owen, Wilfred. "Dulce et Decorum Est." Poems by Wilfred Owen. Chatto & Windus, 1920.

Current Citation

Owen, Wilfred. "Dulce et Decorum Est." The War Poems Of Wilfred Owen. Random House UK, 2018.

I never joined the Army because "at ease" was never that easy to me. It seemed rather uptight still. I don't relax by parting my legs slightly and putting my hands behind my back.

Mitch Hedberg

Strategic Grill Locations

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More information about this quote

Topic

The Army The military

Speaker

Mitch Hedberg

Source

Strategic Grill Locations

Medium

Comedy album

Genre

Comedy (stand up)

Statement Type

Joke

Language

English

Time

1999 1990s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Hedberg, Mitch. Strategic Grill Locations. 7 Sept. 1999, The Laff Stop Comedy Club, Houston, Texas, USA.

There was a famous story, some reporters asked a door gunner, "How can you shoot women and children?" and he'd answered, "It's easy, you just don't lead 'em so much."

Michael Herr

Dispatches

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Topic

Vietnam War

Author

Michael Herr

Source

Dispatches

Genre

War literature War

Language

English

Time

1977 1970s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Herr, Michael. "Breathing In." Dispatches. Alfred A. Knopf, 1977, pt. 3.

There is only one question which really matters: why do bad things happen to good people?

Harold S. Kushner

When Bad Things Happen to Good People

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More information about this quote

Topic

Problem of evil

Author

Harold S. Kushner

Source

When Bad Things Happen to Good People

Statement Type

Question

Language

English

Time

1981 1980s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Kushner, Harold. When Bad Things Happen to Good People. Schocken Books, 1981, ch. 1.

I live in a rather special world. I know only one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don't know. They're outside my ken. But sometimes when I'm in a theater I can feel them.

Pauline Kael

Remark in an address to the Modern Language Association after Richard Nixon's landslide election win in 1972.

More information about this quote

Topic

Living in a bubble American politics

Speaker

Pauline Kael

Language

English

Time

1972 1970s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Kael, Pauline. Quoted in "Critics Here Focus on Films As Language Conference Opens." Written by Israel Shenker. The New York Times, 28 Dec. 1972. Originally stated in a lecture at the Modern Language Association, Dec. 1972.

When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles of a real and rhythmic whole. We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance. Not only this, but through television and telephony we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face, despite intervening distances of thousands of miles; and the instruments through which we shall be able to do this will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone. A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket.

Nikola Tesla

More information about this quote

Topic

Predicting the future Technological progress

Speaker

Nikola Tesla

Source

Collier's Magazine

Medium

Interview

Language

English

Time

1926 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Tesla, Nikola. "When Woman is Boss." Interviewed by John B. Kennedy. Collier's magazine, 30 Jan. 1926.

A society based on the letter of the law and never reaching any higher fails to take advantage of the full range of human possibilities. The letter of the law is too cold and formal to have a beneficial influence on society. Whenever the tissue of life is woven of legalistic relationships, this creates an atmosphere of spiritual mediocrity that paralyzes man’s noblest impulses.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

More information about this quote

Topic

Legalism Laws of physics

Speaker

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Medium

Speech

Genre

Commencement address

Language

English

Time

1978 1970s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Solzhenitsyn, Alexander I. "A World Split Apart." Commencement cermony. 8 June 1978, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.

The truth which makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear.

Herbert Agar

More information about this quote

Topic

Truth hurts Truth Willful ignorance Freedom

Author

Herbert Agar

Source

A Time for Greatness

Statement Type

Irony

Language

English

Time

1942 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Agar, Herbert. A Time for Greatness. Little, Brown and Company, 1942.

Power may justly be compared to a great River, while kept within its due Bonds, is both Beautiful and Useful; but when it overflows its Banks, it is then too impetuous to be stemm'd, it bears down all before it, and brings Destruction and Desolation wherever it comes. If then this is the Nature of Power, let us at least do our Duty, and like wise Men (who value Freedom) use our utmost Care to support Liberty, the only Bulwark against lawless Power, which in all Ages has sacrificed to it's wild Lust and boundless Ambition, the Blood of the best Men that ever liv'd.

Andrew Hamilton

More information about this quote

Topic

Nature of power Power

Speaker

Andrew Hamilton

Language

English

Time

1735 1730s 18th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Hamilton, Andrew. Argument in John Peter Zenger Trial. 1735, New York's City Hall, New York, NY, USA.

We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation, and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form.

William Ralph Inge

The Idea of Progress

More information about this quote

Topic

Animal cruelty Man and animals

Speaker

William Ralph Inge

Source

The Idea of Progress

Medium

Lecture

Language

English

Time

1920 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Inge, William Ralph. "The Idea of Progress." Romanes Lecture. 27 May 1920, The Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, England, UK. Lecture.