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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

• “Such is the poet’s lot: what happier fate Does on the works of grave historians wait! More time they spend, in-greater toils engage: Their volumes swell beyond the thousandth page.”

  John Dryden (1631–1700) said by 1700 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Il est malheureux pour les hommes, heureux peut-être pour les tyrans, que les pauvres, les malheureux, n'aient pas l'instinct ou la fierté de l'éléphant qui ne se reproduit point dans la servitude.”

  Nicolas Chamfort (1740–1794) said by 1794 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “«Los consejos de la vejez iluminan sin quemar, como el sol inverno».”

  Luc de Clapiers (1715–1747) said by 1747 at the latest wikiquote:es, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the greatest part of skill, dexterity, and judgment with which it is any where directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour.”

  Adam Smith (1723–1790) said by 1790 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “How many women thus waste life away the prey of discontent, who might have practised as physicians, regulated a farm, managed a shop, and stood erect, supported by their own industry, instead of hanging their heads surcharged with the dew of sensibility, that consumes the beauty to which it at first gave lustre.”

  Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) said by 1797 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “[I]t is a pretty shocking observation that the Queen is to be the guarantee for a loan of this extraordinary nature made by the Dutch, and especially at a time, when under pretence of disability they directly refuse to furnish their quotas for the sea service, in spight of the obligations of all sorts, which lye upon them to do otherwise.”

  Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke (1678–1751) first seen 1709 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to Lord Orrery (6 April 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. 164

• “Ils ne se servent de la pensée que pour autoriser leurs injustices, et n'emploient les paroles que pour déguiser leurs pensées.”

  Voltaire (1694–1778) first seen 1766 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Dialogue 14, Le Chapon et la Poularde (1766); reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

• “Nothing does Reason more Right, than the Coolness of those that offer it: for Truth often suffers more by the heat of its defenders than from the arguments of its opposers.”

  William Penn (1644–1718) said by 1718 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I begin to grow heartily tired of the etiquette and nonsense so fashionable in this city.”

  George Mason (1725–1792) first seen 1787 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to his son, George Mason, V (27 May 1787)

• “«Debemos distinguir entre “hablar para engañar” y callar para mantener reserva».”

  Voltaire (1694–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote:es, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “How then shall they have the play-games you allow them, if none must be bought for them?" I answer, they should make them themselves, or at least endeavour it, and set themselves about it. ...And if you help them where they are at a stand, it will more endear you to them than any chargeable toys that you shall buy for them.”

  John Locke (1632–1704) said by 1704 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I think opinions should be judged of by their influences and effects; and if a man holds none that tend to make him less virtuous or more vicious, it may be concluded that he holds none that are dangerous, which I hope is the case with me.”

  Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) first seen 1738 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to his father, 13 April 1738, printed in Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin (Philadelphia, 1834), volume 1, p. 233; also quoted in Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (2003) by Walter Isaacson

• “She watches him as a cat would watch a mouse.”

  Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Virtue she finds too painful an endeavour, Content to dwell in decencies forever.”

  Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest bartlett, Public domain source

• “Do not sit dumb in company; it will be ascribed either to pride, cunning, or stupidity: give your opinion modestly, but freely; hear that of others with candour; and ever endeavour to find out, and to communicate truth.”

  James Burgh (1714–1775) said by 1775 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “«Más Estados han perecido por la depravación de las costumbres que por la violación de las leyes. Todos los pueblos defienden mejor sus costumbres que sus leyes».”

  Montesquieu (1689–1755) said by 1755 at the latest wikiquote:es, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “As I love Mannheim, Mannheim loves me.”

  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) first seen 1778 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to Leopold Mozart, (Mannheim, 12 November 1778), from Mozart's Letters, Mozart's Life: Selected Letters, ed. Robert Spaethling [W.W. Norton, 2000, ], p. 193.

• “The term gentleman is usually given to any well-dressed person wearing a sword.”

  César-François de Saussure (1705–1783) said by 1783 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to the good.”

  Edmund Burke (1729–1797) first seen 1788 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech in opening the impeachment of Warren Hastings (18 February 1788), quoted in The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Volume the Tenth (1899), p. 48

• “Tipu ordered that ‘40,000 captives, unhappy families of the Koorg country and other parts of the Mallabar Coast are to be circumcised [converted].’”

  Tipu Sultan (1751–1799) first seen 1789 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Sarkar, Jadunath (ed.), The Allies War with Tipu Sultan: 1790–93, Vol. 3 (Bombay: Government Press, n.d.), Letter #51. Yvon to Malet, dated 31 December 1789, p. 48.Vikram Sampath - Tipu - The Saga of Mysore's Interregnu…

• “Petition me no petitions, sir, to-day; Let other hours be set apart for business. Today it is our pleasure to be drunk; And this our queen shall be as drunk as we.”

  Henry Fielding (1707–1754) said by 1754 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”

  Isaac Newton (1643–1727) said by 1727 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27). Compare: "As children gath'ring pebbles on the shore", John Milton, Paradise Regained, Book iv. Line 3…

• “«Cuanto más débil es el cuerpo, más ordena. Cuanto más fuerte, más obedece».”

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote:es, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Great men are sometimes so even in small things.”

  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. 188