Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,161,747 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
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Said in the 1700s
“Now, if the ignorance of nature gave birth to Gods, the knowledge of nature is calculated to destroy them.”
Baron d'Holbach (1723–1789) said by 1789 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“By sealing our work with our blood, we may see at least the bright dawn of universal happiness. That is our ambition, that is our goal.”
Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) said by 1794 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When a man is discontented with himself, it has one advantage however, that it puts him into an excellent frame of mind for making a bargain.”
Laurence Sterne (1713–1768) said by 1768 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is my strict charge that after my decease no plaster cast, model, or likeness whatever be permitted to be taken. - 'Tho. Gainsborough'.”
Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788) first seen 1788 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In a note of 15 June, 1788; as cited in Thomas Gainsborough, by William T, Whitley; New York, Charles Scribner's Sons – London, Smith, Elder & Co, Sept. 1915, p. 305
“When I consider the Question, Whether there are such Persons in the World as those we call Witches? my Mind is divided between the two opposite Opinions; or rather (to speak my Thoughts freely) I believe in general that there is, and has been such a thing as Witchcraft; but at the same time can give no Credit to any Particular Instance of it.”
Joseph Addison (1672–1719) first seen 1711 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: No. 117 (14 July 1711)
Also quoted by: ジョゼフ・アディソン (ja)
“Pascal and Felix Mendelssohn were prodigiously precocious. But when each died before reaching age forty, each was physiologically an old man. Not so with Mozart – from him could have been extrapolated as much again in the future as had generously erupted in the past.”
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) said by 1791 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Paul Samuelson, "Reflections on the Schumpeter I knew well" (2005)
“Who to a woman trusts his peace of mind, Trusts a frail bark, with a tempestuous wind.”
George Granville, 1st Baron Lansdowne (1666–1735) said by 1735 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Violent passions are formed in solitude. In the bustle of the world no object has time to make a deep impression.”
Henry Home, Lord Kames (1696–1782) said by 1782 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer, is a maxim that has been long and generally approved; never, that I know of, controverted.”
Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) first seen 1785 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Benjamin Vaughan, on Blackstone's Ratio (14 March 1785)
“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
“Nothing is so catching as the plague; now, fanaticism, no matter of what nature, is only the plague of the human mind.”
Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) said by 1798 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A little bench of heedless bishops here, And there a chancellor in embryo.”
William Shenstone (1714–1763) said by 1763 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are few things reason can discover with so much certainty and ease as its own insufficiency.”
Jeremy Collier (1650–1726) said by 1726 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We have a Calvinistic creed, a Popish liturgy, and an Arminian clergy.”
William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham (1708–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Prior's Life of Burke (1790), reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Also quoted by: William Pitt, Earl Of Chatham
“A nightcap decked his brows instead of bay, A cap by night — a stocking all the day!”
Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774) first seen 1760 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Description of an Author's Bedchamber (1760).
“...he always firmly believed that they were purely on the defensive in that rebellion. He considered the Americans as standing at that time, and in that controversy, in the same relation to England, as England did to king James the Second, in 1688.”
Edmund Burke (1729–1797) said by 1797 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A propensity to hope and joy is real riches: One to fear and sorrow, real poverty.”
David Hume (1711–1776) said by 1776 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Passion is a sort of fever in the mind, which ever leaves us weaker than it found us.”
William Penn (1644–1718) said by 1718 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Our world seems to be, in many respects, the bedlam of every other system of intelligent creatures.”
Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke (1678–1751) said by 1751 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Philosophical Works Of the Late Right Honorable Henry St. John, Lord Viscount Bolinbroke (1754), Vol. II, Essay IV, Sect. XIII, p. 381
“I thank Thee first because I was never robbed before; second, because although they took my purse they did not take my life; third, because although they took my all, it was not much; and fourth because it was I who was robbed, and not I who robbed.”
Matthew Henry (1662–1714) said by 1714 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: First reported in Arnold Gingrich, Coronet, Volume 17 (1944), which characterizes the quote as a diary entry. A much earlier report in "Life of the Rev. Matthew Henry", in Christian Biography (1799), p. 66, has Henry w…
“'Tis as cheap sitting as standing.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This method of mine takes its beginnings where Cavalieri ends his Method of indivisibles. ...for as his was the Geometry of indivisibles, so I have chosen to call my method the Arithmetic of infinitesimals.”
John Wallis (1616–1703) said by 1703 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I want you to read the true system of the heart, drafted by a decent man and published under another name. I do not want you to be biased against good and useful books merely because a man unworthy of reading them has the audacity to call himself the Author.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He was my counsel in affairs, was my oracle in taste, the standard to whom I submitted my trifles, and the genius that presided over poor Strawberry.”
Horace Walpole (1717–1797) first seen 1776 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On the death of his friend John Chute (1776)