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Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide

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Said in the 1500s

• “A Christian ought to be disposed and prepared to keep in mind that he has to reckon with God every moment of his life.”

  John Calvin (1509–1564) said by 1564 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I firmly believe that Mary, according to the words of the gospel as a pure Virgin brought forth for us the Son of God and in childbirth and after childbirth forever remained a pure, intact Virgin.”

  Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531) said by 1531 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “How many we know who have fled the sweetness of a tranquil life in their homes, among their friends, to seek the horror of uninhabitable deserts; who have flung themselves into humiliation, degradation, and the contempt of the world, and have enjoyed these and even sought them out.”

  Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Illustrious Lord, hearing that your Excellency has gone to the court of his Imperial Majesty [Charles V], I abstain from coming to Mantua, sighing at my bad fortune in not having left Bologna soon enough to meet your Grace. At Venice I shall prepare the copy of the portrait of his Majesty, which I take home with me at your Excellency's bidding.”

  Titian (1490–1576) first seen 1533 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: In a letter to the Duke of Mantua, from Bologna, 10 March 1533; as quoted by J.A.Y. Crowe & G.B. Cavalcaselle in Titian his life and times - With some account..., publisher John Murray, London, 1877, p. 370

• “They wonder much to hear that gold, which in itself is so useless a thing, should be everywhere so much esteemed, that even men for whom it was made, and by whom it has its value, should yet be thought of less value than it is.”

  Thomas More (1478–1535) said by 1535 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “No one ever perfectly loved God who did not perfectly love some of his creatures in this world.”

  Marguerite de Navarre (1492–1549) said by 1549 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Variant translation by Samuel Putnam in Marguerite of Navarre (1935), p. 53:

• “Natura abhorret vacuum.”

  François Rabelais (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “What indeed is more beautiful than heaven, which of course contains all things of beauty.”

  Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) said by 1543 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Introduction to Book 1, as quoted/translated by Edward Rosen, Nicholas Copernicus on the Revolutions (1978) ed. Jerzy Dobrzycki, Edward Rosen.

• “Ha qualche volta un ortolan parlato Cose molte a proposito a la gente; E da un mantel rotto e sporco e stato Molte volte coperto un uom prudente.”

  Francesco Berni (1497–1535) said by 1535 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I am resolved, to go and plant myself in Holland or in Zeeland, and there await the issue which it shall please Him to ordain.”

  William the Silent (1533–1584) said by 1584 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Writing to his brother John after an unsuccessful campaign, as quoted in William the Silent (1897) by Frederic Harrison, p. 64

• “For if credence shuld be gyven to euery suche lewd person as wold affirme himself to haue reuelations from god what redyer wey were there to subuert al common we[l]thes and good orders in the worlde... As for the late lord of Cauntreburys seying vnto you that she had many greate visions, it ought to move you never a deale to gyve credence vnto her or her reuelations.”

  Thomas Cromwell (1485–1540) first seen 1534 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to Nicholas Shaxton on Elizabeth Barton (February 1534), quoted in Roger Bigelow Merriman, Life and Letters of Thomas Cromwell, Volume I: Life, Letters to 1535 (1902), pp. 375-376

• “Ah! Falso ribaldo!”

  Cesare Borgia (1475–1507) first seen 1502 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Cesare grabs Vitelli as they shake hands and says this (December 1502), as quoted by Edoardo Alvisi, 'Cesare Borgia, Duke of Romagna', Section 358, 1878.

• “As to the text accordyng never a deill, Mair than langis to the cart the fift quheill.”

  Gavin Douglas (1474–1522) said by 1522 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “In regione caecorum rex est luscus.”

  Erasmus (1466–1536) first seen 1500 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Adagia (first published 1500, with numerous expanded editions through 1536), III, IV, 96

• “If a woman becomes weary and at last dead from bearing, that matters not; let her only die from bearing, she is there to do it.”

  Martin Luther (1483–1546) first seen 1519 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Sermon Von dem ehelichen Stande (1519), p. 41 — as quoted in The Ethic of Freethought: A Selection of Essays and Lectures (1888) by Karl Pearson, "The Sex-Relations in Germany", p. 424

• “They are liars and cheats to the very backbone. Their whole study is, how to deceive most cunningly the simplicity and ignorance of the people”

  Francis Xavier (1506–1552) said by 1552 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The people resemble a wild beast, which, naturally fierce and accustomed to live in the woods, has been brought up, as it were, in a prison and in servitude, and having by accident got its liberty, not being accustomed to search for its food, and not knowing where to conceal itself, easily becomes the prey of the first who seeks to incarcerate it again.”

  Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) said by 1527 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Quem faz injúria vil e sem razão, Com forças e poder em que está posto, Não vence; que a vitória verdadeira É saber ter justiça nua e inteira.”

  Luís de Camões (1524–1580) said by 1580 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The still sowe eats up all the draffe.”

  John Heywood (1497–1580) said by 1580 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Also quoted by: Geoffrey Chaucer

• “As touching nature I am a worm of this earth, and yet a subject of this commonwealth; but as touching the office wherein it has pleased God to place me [head of the Reformed church in Scotland], I am a watchman...For that reason I am bound in conscience to blow the trumpet publicly.”

  John Knox (1514–1572) said by 1572 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: As quoted in World Studies for Christian Schools (2000) by Terri Koontz, Mark Sidwell & S. M. Bunker,

• “Das Volk wird frei werden, und Gott will allein der Herr darüber sein!”

  Thomas Müntzer (1489–1525) said by 1525 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Henryson's greatness is most plainly to be seen in the range of general principles and ideas which informs his poetry and which allows it to encompass tragedy and comedy alike. He is the most Shakespearian of the early Scottish poets.”

  Robert Henryson (1425–1506) said by 1506 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Chè sovente addivien che 'l saggio e 'l forte Fabbro a se stesso è di beata sorte.”

  Torquato Tasso (1544–1595) said by 1595 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak (which is like Luther's translation of Mathew 26,41: der Geist ist willig, aber das Fleisch ist schwach; Wyclif for example translated it with: for the spirit is ready, but the flesh is sick.)”

  William Tyndale (1494–1536) said by 1536 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source