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Explore 5101 quotes by Writers

Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
They have to take you in.

Robert Frost

More information about this quote

Topic

Home

Author

Robert Frost

Source

The Death of the Hired Man

Medium

Poem

Statement Type

Definition

Language

English

Time

1914 1910s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Frost, Robert. "The Death of the Hired Man." North of Boston. David Nutt, 1914.

Current Citation

Frost, Robert. "The Death of the Hired Man." Robert Frost: Collected Poems, Prose, and Plays, edited by Richard Poirier and Mark Richardson. Library of America, 1995.

The sea of faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd;
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Matthew Arnold

Dover Beach

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Topic

Decline of religion Disenchanted world Modern life

Author

Matthew Arnold

Source

Dover Beach

Language

English

Time

1867 1860s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Arnold, Matthew. "Dover Beach." New Poems. London: Macmillan and Co., 1867, st. 3, 4.

Current Citation

Arnold, Matthew. "Dover Beach." Dover Beach and Other Poems. Dover Publications, 2012, st. 3, 4.

Be nice to nerds. You may end up working for them.

Charles J. Sykes

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Topic

Nerds

Author

Charles J. Sykes

Source

San Diego Union-Tribune

Medium

Newspaper

Language

English

Time

1996 1990s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Sykes, Charles J. San Diego Union-Tribune. 19 Sept. 1996.

Scepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer.

George Santayana

More information about this quote

Topic

Doubt and skepticism

Author

George Santayana

Source

Scepticism and Animal Faith

Language

English

Time

1923 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Santayana, George. Scepticism and Animal Faith. Charles Scribner's Sons/Constable And Company, 1923, ch. 9.

Theory of the true civilization.
It is not to be found in gas or steam or table turning, It consists in the diminution of the traces of original sin.

Charles Baudelaire

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Topic

Civilization

Author

Charles Baudelaire

Language

French

Time

1867 1860s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Baudelaire, Charles. Mon Coeur mis a nu [My Naked Heart]. Paris, 1887, no. 58.

Current Citation

Baudelaire, Charles. "My Heart Laid Bare." Late Fragments: Flares, My Heart Laid Bare, Prose Poems, Belgium Disrobed, translated by Richard Sieburth. Yale University Press, 2022, no. 58.

Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves suck back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Aegean.

Matthew Arnold

Dover Beach

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Topic

The beach Waves Melancholy

Author

Matthew Arnold

Source

Dover Beach

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1867 1860s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Arnold, Matthew. "Dover Beach." New Poems. London: Macmillan and Co., 1867, I. 9.

Current Citation

Arnold, Matthew. "Dover Beach." Dover Beach and Other Poems. Dover Publications, 2012, I. 9.

Love your solitude and bear with sweet-sounding lamentation the suffering it causes you.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Letters to a Young Poet

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Topic

Solitude

Author

Rainer Maria Rilke

Source

Letters to a Young Poet

Medium

Letter

Statement Type

Advice

Language

German

Time

1929 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Rilke, Rainer Maria. Letter to Franz Kappus. 16 July 1903.

Current Citation

Rilke, Rainer Maria. Letters to a Young Poet, translated by Charlie Louth. Penguin Classics, 2014.

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view.

Edward Abbey

Desert Solitaire

More information about this quote

Topic

Learning from adversity

Author

Edward Abbey

Source

Desert Solitaire

Genre

Autobiography and memoir

Statement Type

Wish

Language

English

Time

1968 1960s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Abbey, Edward. Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness. McGraw-Hill, 1968, preface.

"Beauty" is a currency system like the gold standard. Like any economy, it is determined by politics, and in the modern age in the West it is the last, best belief system that keeps male dominance intact.

Naomi Wolf

The Beauty Myth

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Topic

Patriarchy Beauty

Author

Naomi Wolf

Source

The Beauty Myth

Genre

Sociology

Language

English

Time

1990 1990s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women. Chatto & Windus, 1990.

It is always the best policy to speak the truth—unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar.

Jerome K. Jerome

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Topic

Telling the truth Lying

Author

Jerome K. Jerome

Source

The Idler

Language

English

Time

1892 1890s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Jerome, Jerome K. "The Idler's Club." The Idler. London: Chatto & Windus, Feb. 1892.

If I can stop one Heart from breaking
I shall not live in vain
If I can ease one Life the Aching
Or cool one Pain
Or help one fainting Robin
Unto his Nest again
I shall not live in Vain.

Emily Dickinson

Read If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking at Project Gutenberg

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Topic

Helping others

Author

Emily Dickinson

Source

If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking Poems

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1886 1880s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Dickinson, Emily. "If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking." Poems by Emily Dickinson. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1890, I. 1.

Current Citation

Dickinson, Emily. "If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking." Emily Dickinson’s Poems: As She Preserved Them, edited by Cristanne Miller. Belknap Press, 2016, I. 1.

Yeah, I try to leave out the parts that people skip.

Elmore Leonard

On his writing.

More information about this quote

Topic

Writing

Author

Elmore Leonard

Language

English

Time

1985 1980s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Leonard, Elmore. Spoken during Book-of-the-Month Club luncheon. Luncheon. c. 1985, USA.

I like to find
what's not found
at once, but lies
within something of another nature
in repose, distinct.

Denise Levertov

Pleasures

More information about this quote

Topic

Seeking

Author

Denise Levertov

Source

Pleasures

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1959 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Levertov, Denise. "Pleasures." With Eyes at the Back of Our Heads. New Directions Publishing, 1959, I. 1.

In the misfortune of our best friends we often find something that is not displeasing.

François de La Rochefoucauld

Reflections

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Topic

Schadenfreude Friends

Author

François de La Rochefoucauld

Source

Reflections

Medium

Epigram

Language

French

Time

1678 1670s 17th century

Authentication Score 1

Original Citation

La Rochefoucauld, Francois. Reflexions ou sentences et maximes morales [Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims]. c. 1665.

Current Citation

La Rochefoucauld, Francois. Collected Maxims and Other Reflections, translated by E. H. and A. M. Blackmore and Francine Giguere. Oxford University Press, 2008.

The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation.

Kate Chopin

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Topic

Sound of water Ocean and sea

Author

Kate Chopin

Source

The Awakening

Medium

Novel

Language

English

Time

1899 1890s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Chopin, Kate. The Awakening. Chicago and New York: Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1899, ch. 6.

Current Citation

Chopin, Kate. "The Awakening." The Awakening and Selected Stories. Penguin Classics, 2003, ch. 6.

Sorrow comes in great waves—no one can know that better than you—but it rolls over us, and though it may almost smother us it leaves us on the spot, and we know that if it is strong we are stronger, inasmuch as it passes and we remain. It wears us, uses us, but we wear it and use it in return; and it is blind, whereas we after a manner see.

Henry James

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Topic

Learning from suffering Suffering

Author

Henry James

Source

Letters of Henry James

Medium

Letter

Statement Type

Metaphor, analogy and simile

Language

English

Time

1883 1880s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

James, Henry. Letter to Grace Norton. 28 July 1883.

Current Citation

James, Henry. "July 28th [1883] To Grace Norton." The Complete Letters of Henry James, 1883-1884, edited by Michael Anesko and Greg W. Zacharias. Vol. 1, University of Nebraska Press, 2018.

Electric flesh-arrows...traversing the body. A rainbow of color strikes the eyelids. A foam of music falls over the ears. It is the gong of the orgasm.

Anaïs Nin

More information about this quote

Topic

Sex

Author

Anaïs Nin

Source

Journals of Anaïs Nin

Medium

Personal journal

Language

English

Time

1937 1930s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Nin, Anaïs. "October, 1937." The Diary of Anaïs Nin, vol. 2, 1934–1939, edited by Gunther Stuhlmann. Harcourt Brace & World, Inc., 1967.

Although we are mere sojourners on the surface of the planet, chained to a mere point in space, enduring but for a moment of time, the human mind is not only enabled to number worlds beyond the unassisted ken of mortal eye, but to trace the events of indefinite ages before the creation of our race, and is not even withheld from penetrating into the dark secrets of the ocean, or the interior of the solid globe.

Charles Lyell

Principles of Geology

More information about this quote

Topic

Scientific progress

Author

Charles Lyell

Source

Principles of Geology

Genre

Scientific literature

Language

English

Time

1830 1830s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Lyell, Charles, Sir. Principles of Geology: Being an Attempt to Explain the Former Changes of the Earth's Surface, by Reference to Causes Now in Operation. Vol. 1, London: John Murray, 1830.

There is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise.

Gore Vidal

More information about this quote

Topic

Solving problems

Author

Gore Vidal

Source

Writing Plays for Television New World Writing

Medium

Essay

Language

English

Time

1956 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Vidal, Gore. "Writing Plays for Television." New World Writing, 1956.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.

Rita Mae Brown

More information about this quote

Topic

Insanity

Author

Rita Mae Brown

Language

English

Time

1983 1980s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Brown, Rita Mae. Sudden Death. Bantam Books, 1983, ch. 4.