Famous quotes
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 1700s
“The people bend before me. I turn the battle in the field of the brave. I look on the nations, and they vanish: my nostrils pour the blast of death. I come abroad on the winds: the tempests are before my face. But my dwelling is calm, above the clouds; the fields of my rest are pleasant.”
James Macpherson (1736–1796) said by 1796 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have that honour for him as to believe that he wrote good sense; and therefore take that sense to be his which is the best.”
Isaac Newton (1643–1727) said by 1727 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speaking of the apostle John's writings. Cited in The Watchtower magazine, 1977, 4/15.
“[T]he Irish patriots who had suffered so much in their [France's] cause, and who by the number of men they employed, and the quantity of money they had cost England, had served as a powerful diversion in favor of the Republic, without putting her to the expense of one shilling.”
Theobald Wolfe Tone (1763–1798) first seen 1763 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Diary (16 June 1798), quoted in T. W. Moody, R. B. McDowell and C. J. Woods (eds.), The Writings of Theobald Wolfe Tone, 1763–98, Volume III: France, the Rhine, Lough Swilly and Death of Tone, January 1797 to November 1…
“On you, my lord, with anxious fear I wait, And from your judgment must expect my fate.”
Joseph Addison (1672–1719) first seen 1695 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Poem to His Majesty (1695), l. 21
Also quoted by: ジョゼフ・アディソン (ja)
“Some authors regard morality in the same light as we regard modern architecture. Convenience is the first thing to be looked for.”
Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715–1747) said by 1747 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Tr. E. Lee (1903) p. 166
“That no free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people, but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue, and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.”
George Mason (1725–1792) said by 1792 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Tout homme sensé, tout homme de bien, doit avoir la secte chrétienne en horreur.”
Voltaire (1694–1778) first seen 1736 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Examen important de milord Bolingbroke (1736) Conclusion
“Englishmen look on death in quite a different light to what other nations do, and are not afraid of it. As I have mentioned elsewhere, most criminals may be seen going with wonderful courage and fortitude to the gallows. I have also remarked that the passions of this nation are extremely strong and violent; they cannot bear failure, and customs and example are, I think, a great incitement to them.”
César-François de Saussure (1705–1783) first seen 1727 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter VIII, Islington, near London, 29 May 1727, p. 198
“One of the advantages of a great sorrow is that nothing else seems painful.”
Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) said by 1798 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Extraordinary afflictions are not always the punishment of extraordinary sins, but sometimes the trial of extraordinary graces.”
Matthew Henry (1662–1714) said by 1714 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A peace must be had; and all mankind sees plainly now, in how vile a manner former opportunities were neglected of making a better than at this hour we have reason to expect.”
Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke (1678–1751) first seen 1709 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Lord Orrery (30 March 1711), quoted in 'The Letters of Henry St. John to the Earl of Orrery, 1709–1711', ed. H. T. Dickinson, Camden Miscellany, Vol. XXVI (1975), p. 163
“The rulers of Great Britain have, for more than a century past, amused the people with the imagination that they possessed a great empire on the west side of the Atlantic. This empire, however, has hitherto existed in imagination only.”
Adam Smith (1723–1790) first seen 1032 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chapter III, Part V, p. 1032 (Last Page).
“[T]he Defense of the , and of the great Inventor, was not neglected.”
Colin Maclaurin (1698–1746) said by 1746 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“However, it is not unlikely that the Arabs, who received from the Indians the numeral figures (which the Greeks knew not), did from them also receive the use of them, and many profound speculations concerning them, which neither Latins nor Greeks know, till that now of late we have learned them from thence. From the Indians also they might learn their algebra, rather than from Diophantus.”
John Wallis (1616–1703) first seen 1685 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: John Wallis, in 1685 quoted in :Heeffer, Albrecht. ‘The Reception of Ancient Indian Mathematics by Western Historians’. In Ancient Indian Leaps into Mathematics, edited by B. S. Yadav and Man Mohan, pp. 135-152. Birkhäu…
“[W]hile we are under the power and tyranny of priests, since as it ever has, it ever will be their interest, to invalidate the law of nature and reason, in order to establish systems incompatible therewith.”
Ethan Allen (1738–1789) said by 1789 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Stay with me to-night; you must see me die. I have long had the taste of death on my tongue, I smell death, and who will stand by my Constanze, if you do not stay?”
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) first seen 1791 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Spoken on his deathbed to his sister-in-law, Sophie Weber (5 December 1791), from Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words by Friedrich Kerst, trans. Henry Edward Krehbiel (1906)
“Heaven,” replied Manfred, “does not send Heralds to question the title of a lawful Prince. I doubt whether it even notifies its will through Friars—but that is your affair, not mine.”
Horace Walpole (1717–1797) said by 1797 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Health is beauty, and the most perfect health is the most perfect beauty.”
William Shenstone (1714–1763) said by 1763 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The river of grace, it is true, is not dried up; but often, in order to water new lands, it diverts its course and leaves only dry sand in the old canal. Faith has not died out, I admit; but it is not bound to any of the places it illumines; it leaves behind it a frightful night for those who have scorned the day, and it carries rays of light to purer eyes.”
François Fénelon (1651–1715) said by 1715 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Sermon for the feast of the Epiphany, quoted in Henri de Lubac, Theology in History, translated by Anne Englund Nash (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1996), p. 380, n. 30
“There is no heav'n like mutual love.”
George Granville, 1st Baron Lansdowne (1666–1735) said by 1735 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We part more easily with what we possess, than with our expectations of what we wish for; because expectation always goes beyond enjoyment.”
Henry Home, Lord Kames (1696–1782) said by 1782 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let observation with extensive view Survey mankind, from China to Peru.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) said by 1784 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Where danger shews it self, apprehension cannot, without stupidity, be wanting; where danger is, sense of danger should be; and so much fear as should keep us awake, and excite our attention, industry, and vigour; but not to disturb the calm use of our reason, nor hinder the execution of what that dictates.”
John Locke (1632–1704) said by 1704 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“By liberty, then, we can only mean a power of acting or not acting, according to the determinations of the will.”
David Hume (1711–1776) said by 1776 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source