Writer

Explore 5101 quotes by Writers

There is in God, some say,
A deep but dazzling darkness.

Henry Vaughan

Silex Scintillans

More information about this quote

Topic

Nature of God God

Author

Henry Vaughan

Source

Silex Scintillans

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1655 1650s 17th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Vaughan, Henry. "The Night." Silex Scintillans. London: H. Blunden, 1655.

What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.

Charles Bukowski

More information about this quote

Topic

Adversity

Author

Charles Bukowski

Language

English

Time

1994 1990s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Bukowski, Charles. How Is Your Heart. c. 1994.

I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Langston Hughes

Read The Negro Speaks of Rivers at Poetry Foundation

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Topic

Rivers Life experience Acquiring wisdom

Author

Langston Hughes

Source

The Negro Speaks of Rivers

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1921 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Hughes, Langston. "The Negro Speaks of Rivers." The Crisis, June 1921, I. 1.

Current Citation

Hughes, Langston. "The Negro Speaks of Rivers." The Weary Blues. Alfred A. Knopf, 2015, I. 1.

War is capitalism with the gloves off.

Tom Stoppard

More information about this quote

Topic

Nature of war Military industrial complex

Speaker

Tristan Tzara

Author

Tom Stoppard

Source

Travesties

Medium

Play

Statement Type

Definition

Language

English

Time

1974 1970s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Stoppard, Tom. Travesties. Royal Shakespeare Company, 10 June 1974, Aldwych Theatre, London, England, UK, act 1.

Current Citation

Stoppard, Tom. Travesties. Grove Press, 1994, act 1.

Every parting gives a foretaste of death; every coming together again a foretaste of the resurrection.

Arthur Schopenhauer

Psychological Remarks

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Topic

Saying goodbye

Author

Arthur Schopenhauer

Source

Psychological Remarks Parerga and Paralipomena

Language

German

Time

1851 1850s 19th century

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Schopenhauer, Arthur. "Psychologische Bemerfungen [Psychological Observations]." Parerga und Paralipomena. Vol. 2, Berlin: Druck und Verlag von U. W. Haan, 1851.

Current Citation

Schopenhauer, Arthur. "Psychological Remarks." Parerga and Paralipomena, translated by Adrian Del Caro and Christopher Janaway. Vol. 2, Cambridge University Press, 2017.

The best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of Love.

William Wordsworth

Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey

More information about this quote

Topic

Serving others Loving others The little things

Author

William Wordsworth

Source

Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1798 1790s 18th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Wordsworth, William. "Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey." Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems. London: J. and A. Arch, 1798, I. 33.

Current Citation

Wordsworth, William. "Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey." William Wordsworth: The Major Works: including The Prelude, edited by Stephen Gill. Oxford University Press, 2008, I. 33.

Fanaticism is always a sign of repressed doubt.

Carl Jung

More information about this quote

Topic

Fanaticism

Speaker

Carl Jung

Medium

Lecture

Language

English

Time

1935 1930s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Jung, Carl. Lecture five of the Tavistock lectures. 1935, Tavistock Clinic, London, England, UK.

Current Citation

Jung, Carl. The Symbolic Life: Miscellaneous Writings. Routledge, 2014, pt. 1, lecture 5.

What do you mean, less than nothing? I don't think there is any such thing as less than nothing. Nothing is absolutely the limit of nothingness. It's the lowest you can go. It's the end of the line. How can something be less than nothing? If there were something that was less than nothing, then nothing would not be nothing, it would be something-even though it's just a very little bit of something. But if nothing is nothing, then nothing has nothing that is less than it is.

E. B. White

Charlotte's Web

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More information about this quote

Topic

Nothingness

Speaker

Wilbur

Author

E. B. White

Source

Charlotte's Web

Genre

Children's literature

Language

English

Time

1952 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

White, E. B. Charlotte's Web. Harper & Brothers, 1952, ch. 4.

Death in itself is nothing, but we fear
To be we know not what, we know not where.

John Dryden

Aurenge-Zebe

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Topic

Fear of death Mystery of death Death

Speaker

Aureng-zebe

Author

John Dryden

Source

Aurenge-Zebe

Medium

Play

Genre

Drama (play)

Language

English

Time

1675 1670s 17th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Dryden, John. Aureng-Zebe. King's Company, 1675, Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London, England, UK, act 4, sc. 1.

Current Citation

Dryden, John. "Aureng-Zebe." The Works of John Dryden, edited by Vinton A. Dearing. Vol. 12, University of California Press, 1995, act 4, sc. 1.

My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel—it is, before all, to make you see. That—and no more, and it is everything.

Joseph Conrad

More information about this quote

Topic

Power of literature

Author

Joseph Conrad

Source

The Nigger of the Narcissus

Language

English

Time

1897 1890s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Conrad, Joseph. The Nigger of the "Narcissus": A Tale of the Forecastle. Heinemann, 1897, preface.

Current Citation

Conrad, Joseph. "The Nigger of the '"Narcissus.'" The Secret Sharer and Other Stories. W. W. Norton & Company, 2015, preface.

In the life of each of us, I said to myself there is a place remote and islanded, and given to endless regret or secret happiness.

Sarah Orne Jewett

More information about this quote

Topic

Inner life

Author

Sarah Orne Jewett

Language

English

Time

1896 1890s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Jewett, Sarah Orne. The Country of the Pointed Firs. Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1896, ch. 15.

Current Citation

Jewett, Sarah Orne. "The Country of the Pointed Firs." The Country of the Pointed Firs and Other Stories. Signet, 2009, ch. 15.

Patriotism is, fundamentally, a conviction that a particular country is the best in the world because you were born in it.

George Bernard Shaw

More information about this quote

Topic

Patriotism

Author

George Bernard Shaw

Source

Music in London The World

Language

English

Time

1893 1890s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Shaw, George Bernard. "Music in London." The World. London, 15 Nov. 1893.

Men grind and grind in the mill of a truism, and nothing comes out but what was put in. But the moment they desert the tradition for a spontaneous thought, then poetry, wit, hope, virtue, learning, anecdote, all flock to their aid.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Literary Ethics

More information about this quote

Topic

Originality

Author

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Source

Literary Ethics

Medium

Essay

Language

English

Time

1838 1830s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Literary Ethics." 24 July 1838, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA.

Meditation is not a means to an end. It is both the means and the end.

Jiddu Krishnamurti

More information about this quote

Topic

Meditation Mindfulness

Author

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Language

English

Time

1973 1970s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Krishnamurti, Jiddu. The Second Penguin Krishnamurti Reader, edited by Mary Lutyens. Penguin Books, 1973, pt. 1.

We have a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the real misfortunes and pains of others.

Edmund Burke

Philosophical Enquiry in the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful

More information about this quote

Topic

Schadenfreude

Author

Edmund Burke

Source

Philosophical Enquiry in the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful

Genre

Philosophical literature

Language

English

Time

1757 1750s 18th century

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Burke, Edmund. Philosophical Enquiry in the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. London: R and J. Dodsley, 1757, pt. 1, sec. 14.

Current Citation

Burke, Edmund. "Philosophical Enquiry in the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful." The Portable Edmund Burke, edited by Isaac Kramnick. Penguin, 2009, pt. 1, sec. 14.

To die will be an awfully big adventure.

James M. Barrie

Peter Pan

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More information about this quote

Topic

Death

Author

James M. Barrie

Source

Peter Pan

Medium

Play

Language

English

Time

1904 1900s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Barrie, James M. Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up. Performed by Gerald du Maurier, Nina Boucicault, Joan Burnett, Christine Silver, A.W. Baskcomb, and Alice DuBarry. 27 Dec. 1904, Duke of York's Theatre, Westminster, London, England, UK, act 3.

Current Citation

Barrie, James M. Peter Pan. Reader's Library Classics, 2022, ch. 8.

Every successful revolution puts on in time the robes of the tyrant it has deposed.

Barbara W. Tuchman

Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911–45

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More information about this quote

Topic

Revolution

Author

Barbara W. Tuchman

Source

Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911–45

Genre

Historical literature

Language

English

Time

1972 1970s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Tuchman, Barbara W. Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911–45. Macmillan, 1972, ch. 8.

The lyricism of marginality may find inspiration in the image of the "outlaw," the great social nomad, who prowls on the confines of a docile, frightened order.

Michel Foucault

Discipline and Punish

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More information about this quote

Topic

Outsiders and outcasts

Author

Michel Foucault

Source

Discipline and Punish

Language

French

Time

1975 1970s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Foucault, Michel. Surveiller et punir: Naissance de la prison [Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison]. Gallimard, 1975.

If you can't say anything good about someone, sit right here by me.

Alice Roosevelt Longworth

More information about this quote

Topic

Gossip Criticizing others

Author

Alice Roosevelt Longworth

Language

English

Time

1980 1980s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Longworth, Alice Roosevelt. Embroidered on a pillow in her sitting room. c. 1980.

If you trap the moment before it's ripe,
The tears of repentance you'll certainly wipe;
But if once you let the ripe moment go
You can never wipe off the tears of woe.

William Blake

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More information about this quote

Topic

Missed opportunities Timing

Author

William Blake

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1792 1790s 18th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Blake, William. Poem written in his notebook. c. 1792.

Current Citation

Blake, William. "If you trap the moment before its ripe." William Blake: Selected Poems, edited by Nicholas Shrimpton. Oxford University Press, 2019.