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 1800s
“Huxleyism: the theory of the anthropoid descent of man and its inevitable consequences.”
Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) said by 1895 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Clarence Edwin Ayres, Huxley (1929) p. 242
“The world is a great place and stocked with wealth and beauty, and there is no limit to the rewards that may be offered. Such an one who would refuse a million of money may sell his honour for an empire or the love of a woman.”
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) said by 1894 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event — in the living act, the undoubted deed — there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Pour juger un homme, au moins faut-il être dans le secret de sa pensée, de ses malheurs, de ses émotions ; ne vouloir connaître de sa vie que les événements matériels, c'est faire de la chronologie, l'histoire des sots !”
Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Consider any individual at any period of his life, and you will always find him preoccupied with fresh plans to increase his comfort.”
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The sea is calm tonight. The tide is full, the moon lies fair Upon the straits;—on the French coast the light Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Politeness smooths wrinkles.”
Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) said by 1824 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I pondered all these things, and how men fight and lose the battle, and the thing that they fought for comes about in spite of their defeat, and when it comes turns out not to be what they meant, and other men have to fight for what they meant under another name.”
William Morris (1834–1896) said by 1896 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents.”
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) said by 1860 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Lambe them, lads! lambe them!" a cant phrase of the time derived from the fate of Dr. Lambe, an astrologer and quack, who was knocked on the head by the rabble in Charles the First's time.”
Walter Scott (1771–1832) said by 1832 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Sir Walter Scott
“What other form of government, indeed, can so well deserve our esteem and love?”
John Adams (1735–1826) said by 1826 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Twenty years will produce all the mischief that can be apprehended from the liberty to import slaves. So long a term will be more dishonorable to the National character than to say nothing about it in the Constitution.”
James Madison (1751–1836) first seen 1787 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Madison's notes (25 August 1787)
“There is no education like adversity.”
Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) said by 1881 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is a comfortable feeling to know that you stand on your own ground. Land is about the only thing that can't fly away.”
Anthony Trollope (1815–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It strikes everyone in beginning to form an acquaintance with the treasures of Indian literature, that a land so rich in intellectual products and those of the profoundest order of thought...”
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) said by 1831 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: quoted in De Riencourt, Amaury The Soul of India Harper & Brothers Publishers New York 1960 p. 301
“I have often wished in vain," said she, "for another's judgment to appeal to when I could scarcely trust the direction of my own eye and head, they having been so long occupied with the contemplation of a single object as to become almost incapable of forming a proper idea respecting it." "That," replied I, "is only one of many evils to which a solitary life exposes us.”
Anne Brontë (1820–1849) said by 1849 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I know there is a hope in religion; I know there is faith and I know there is prayer about religion and necessary to it, but God is most glorified when there is peace on earth and good will towards men.”
Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) said by 1895 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The Cambridge Companion to Frederick Douglass (2009), by Maurice S. Lee, Cambridge University Press, p. 70
“In man (as the only rational creature on earth) those natural capacities which are directed to the use of his reason are to be fully developed only in the race, not in the individual.”
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) said by 1804 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In der Kunst ist das Beste gut genug.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1787 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Italian Journey (March 3, 1787)
“Spirit: Do not be deceived by sophists and half philosophers; things do not appear to thee by means of any representatives. Of the thing that exists, and that can exist, thou art conscious immediately ; thou, thyself, art that of which thou art conscious. By a fundamental law of thy being thou art thus presented to thyself, and thrown out of thyself.”
Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) said by 1814 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Jane Sinnett, trans 1846 p. 53
“For mere vengeance I would do nothing. This nation is too great to look for mere revenge. But for security of the future I would do every thing.”
James A. Garfield (1831–1881) first seen 1865 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in New York City (15 April 1865) on the occasion of Abraham Lincoln's assassination, as reported in John Clark Ridpath, The Life and Work of James A. Garfield (1882 memorial edition), p. 194. Several biographers …
“May God give me the wisdom which I need and grant me what I so fervently desire, that is, to finish my studies as quickly as possible and he ordained, so that I can perform the practical duties of a clergyman.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1877 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In a letter to Theo, from Amsterdam, 19 Nov. 1877; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935], (letter 113), p. 18
“One may discover the root of a Hindoo religion in his own private history, when, in the silent intervals of the day or night, he does sometimes inflict on himself like austerities with a stern satisfaction.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Snakes in the Ganga (2022)
“I came hither [Craigenputtoch] solely with the design to simplify my way of life and to secure the independence through which I could be enabled to remain true to myself.”
Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) first seen 1828 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Goethe, (1828).