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
EnglishItalianoPolskiעבריתFrançaisPortuguêsفارسیEspañol中文РусскийDeutschالعربيةहिन्दी日本語ΕλληνικάLatinaNederlands
Friendship
LoveFriendshipHappinessHopeFearCourageDeathLifeTimeWarPeaceFreedomTruthWisdomKnowledgeScienceArtMusicNatureMoneyWorkPowerGodBeautyLaughterFamilySuccess and failureChangeDreamsBooks and reading
“When Israel was first founded in 1948 and all my Jewish friends were jubilant, I was the skeleton at the feast. I said, ‘“We are building ourselves a ghetto. We will be surrounded by tens of millions of Muslims who will never forgive, never forget, and never go away.” I was right.”
Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) said by 1992 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Anyway, just because you're sworn enemies doesn't mean you can't be friends, does it?”
Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A well I bless my soul What's wrong with me? I'm itching like a man on a fuzzy tree. My friends say I'm actin' wild as a bug. I'm in love, I'm all shook up. Mm mm oh, oh, yeah, yeah!”
Elvis Presley (1935–1977) first seen 1957 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: , written by Otis Blackwell and Elvis Presley (1957)
“What! Think you that my flashes show me Only in lightnings to excel? Believe me, friends, you do not know me, For I can thunder quite as well.”
Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) said by 1856 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Wartet nur! [Only Wait!] in Poems for the Times ; also in Poems of Heinrich Heine: Three Hundred and Twenty-five Poems (1917) Selected and translated by Louis Untermeyer, p. 262
“If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they're happy.”
Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) first seen 1959 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a review of the revised edition of The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White published in Esquire (November 1959).
“I'm not one of those who wants to stop Christian traditions. This is historically a Christian country. I'm a cultural Christian the same way as many of my friends call themselves cultural Jews or cultural Muslims. So, yes, I love singing carols along with everybody else. I'm not one of those who wants to purge our society of our Christian history.”
Richard Dawkins (born 1941) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: BBC's Have Your Say (December 2007)
“To label people as death-deserving enemies because of disagreements about real world politics is bad enough. To do the same for disagreements about a delusional world inhabited by archangels, demons and imaginary friends is ludicrously tragic.”
Richard Dawkins (born 1941) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I know where I'm going. But I don't want to leave. I just have one problem We're best friends, yeah? We tied ourselves in knots Doing cartwheels 'cross the floor Just forget it alright.”
“There are numerous bugbears in the profession of a politician. First, ordinary life suffers. Second, there are many temptations to ruin you and those around you. And I suppose third, and this is rarely discussed, people at the top generally have no friends.”
Boris Yeltsin (1931–2007) first seen 1994 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Struggle for Russia (1994)
“Now obey thy cherished secret wish, Embrace thy friends—leave all in order; To port and hawser's tie no more returning, Depart upon thy endless cruise, old Sailor!”
Walt Whitman (1819–1892) said by 1892 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We all know that the 'divine glory of the ego' is socially a great nuisance; we all do actually value our friends for modesty, freshness, and simplicity of heart. Whatever may be the reason, we all do warmly respect humility — in other people.”
G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My friends, we will not go again or ape an ancient rage, Or stretch the folly of our youth to be the shame of age,”
G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Slav, Teuton, Kelt, I count them all My friends and brother souls, With all the peoples, great and small, That wheel between the poles.”
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) said by 1892 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Epilogue to The Charge of the heavy Brigade, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks; The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends. 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die.”
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) said by 1892 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, That brings our friends up from the underworld, Sad as the last which reddens over one That sinks with all we love below the verge; So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.”
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) said by 1892 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“'I can repeat the very words you were saying: "Three foggy mornings and one rainy day Will rot the best birch fence a man can build." Think of it, talk like that at such a time! What had how long it takes a birch to rot To do with what was in the darkened parlor? You couldn't care! The nearest friends can go With anyone to death, comes so far short They might as well not try to go at all.”
Robert Frost (1874–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Alas! they had been friends in youth; But whispering tongues can poison truth; And constancy lives in realms above; And life is thorny; and youth is vain; And to be wroth with one we love Doth work like madness in the brain.”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) said by 1834 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“O wiselier then, from feeble yearnings freed, While, and on whom, thou may'st — shine on! nor heed Whether the object by reflected light Return thy radiance or absorb it quite: And tho' thou notest from thy safe recess Old Friends burn dim, like lamps in noisome air, Love them for what they are; nor love them less, Because to thee they are not what they were.”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) said by 1834 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Have you not heard When a man marries, dies, or turns Hindoo, His best friends hear no more of him?”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) first seen 1820 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Maria Gisborne (1820), l. 235
“The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so.”
Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The story is told that one night at dinner here at Mount Vernon, Lafayette said to Washington, "General, you Americans even in war and desperate times have a superb spirit. You're happy and you're confident. Why is it?" And Washington answered, "There is freedom. There is space for a man to be alone and think, and there are friends who owe each other nothing but affection.”
Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I only know that in our choice of friends and lovers and teachers who will change our lives, we are guided by forces which have nothing to do with the rationalizations we give.”
Erica Jong (born 1942) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Friends and colleagues all of a sudden looked at us, treated us, slightly differently than had months or years before when we were working together. I never quite understood that.”
Neil Armstrong (1930–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Christ should leave us. He is too much with us and I don't like his friends. We have no hope of recovering Christ until Christ leaves us. There is after all something worse than being God-forsaken. It is when God overstays his welcome and take up with the wrong people.”
Walker Percy (1916–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Geography has made us neighbors. History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners. And necessity has made us allies. Those whom nature hath so joined together, let no man put asunder.”
John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) first seen 1961 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Address to the Canadian Parliament (17 May 1961)
“To those old allies whose cultural and spiritual origins we share, we pledge the loyalty of faithful friends. United, there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided, there is little we can do — for we dare not meet a powerful challenge at odds and split asunder.”
John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“While geography has made us neighbors, tradition has made us friends. Economics has made us partners. And necessity has made us allies — in a vast Alianza para el Progreso. Those whom nature has so joined together, let no man put asunder.”
John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) first seen 1962 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Address by the President at a Luncheon Given in His Honor by President Lopez Matcos (29 June 1962)
“Frank O'Connor, the Irish writer, tells in one of his books how, as a boy, he and his friends would make their way across the countryside, and when they came to an orchard wall that seemed too high and too doubtful to try and too difficult to permit their voyage to continue, they took off their hats and tossed them over the wall — and then they had no choice but to follow them.”
John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My friends, as we enter a new decade, it should be clear to all of us that there is an unfinished agenda, that we have miles to go before we reach the promised land. The men who rule this country today never learned the lessons of Dr. King, they never learned that non-violence is the only way to peace and justice. Our nation continues to wage war upon its neighbors, and upon itself.”
Cesar Chavez (1927–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disenfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourse of my book friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness. The things I have learned and the things I have been taught seem of ridiculously little importance compared with their "large loves and heavenly charities.”
Helen Keller (1880–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Prosperity makes friends, adversity tries them.”
Publilius Syrus (101–101 BC) said by 101 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Publius Syrus
“Friends depart, and memory takes them To her caverns, pure and deep.”
Thomas Haynes Bayly (1797–1839) said by 1839 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Teach me to forget, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“Oh, I have roamed o'er many lands, And many friends I've met; Not one fair scene or kindly smile Can this fond heart forget.”
Thomas Haynes Bayly (1797–1839) said by 1839 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Oh, steer my Bark to Erin's Isle, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“Histories are more full of Examples of the Fidelity of dogs than of Friends.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1709 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Henry Cromwell (19 October 1709)
“Thou has left behind Powers that will work for thee,—air, earth, and skies! There 's not a breathing of the common wind That will forget thee; thou hast great allies; Thy friends are exultations, agonies, And love, and man's unconquerable mind.”
William Wordsworth (1770–1850) first seen 1807 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: To Toussaint L'Ouverture, l. 12 (1807)
“Small service is true service while it lasts. Of humblest friends, bright creature! scorn not one: The daisy, by the shadow that it casts, Protects the lingering dewdrop from the sun.”
William Wordsworth (1770–1850) first seen 1834 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: To a Child. Written in her Album (1834)
“As thou these ashes, little brook! will bear Into the Avon, Avon to the tide Of Severn, Severn to the narrow seas, Into main ocean they, this deed accurst, An emblem yields to friends and enemies How the bold teacher's doctrine, sanctified By truth, shall spread throughout the world dispersed.”
William Wordsworth (1770–1850) first seen 1415 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Part II, No. 17 — Wicliffe; in obedience to the order of the Council of Constance (1415), the remains of Wickliffe were exhumed and burned to ashes, and these cast into the Swift, a neighbouring brook running hard by; a…
“Ah, my friends, we must look out and around to see what God is like. It is when we persist in turning our eyes inward, and prying curiously over our own imperfections, that we learn to make God after our own image, and fancy that our own darkness and hardness of heart are the patterns of His light and love.”
Charles Kingsley (1819–1875) said by 1875 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Not all his men may sever this, It yields to friends', not monarchs', calls; My whinstone house my castle is— I have my own four walls.”
Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) first seen 1825 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: My Own Four Walls” (c. 1825) {{cite book
“A kind and gentle heart he had, To comfort friends and foes; The naked every day he clad When he put on his clothes.”
Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774) said by 1774 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I love everything that's old: old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wines.”
Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774) said by 1774 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack, For he knew when he pleased he could whistle them back.”
Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774) said by 1774 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is always safe to learn, even from our enemies, seldom safe to venture to instruct, even our friends.”
Charles Caleb Colton (1777–1832) said by 1832 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“…one enemy can do more hurt, than ten friends can do good.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) first seen 1711 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Journal to Stella (30 June, 1711)
“A child will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends; and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish, and seasoned with a little pepper or salt will be very good boiled on the fourth day, especially in winter.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) first seen 1729 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Modest Proposal (1729)
“Were I to prescribe a rule for drinking, it should be formed upon a saying quoted by Sir William Temple: the first glass for myself, the second for my friends, the third for good humor, and the fourth for mine enemies.”
Joseph Addison (1672–1719) first seen 1711 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: No. 195 (13 October 1711)
“An army of trumpeters would give as great a strength to a cause, as this confederacy of tongue-warriors; who, like those military musicians, content themselves with animating their friends to battle, and run out of the engagement upon the first onset. No. 28. Monday, March 26, 1716”
Joseph Addison (1672–1719) first seen 1716 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: No. 28. Monday, March 26, 1716
“A wise man ought not to desire to inhabit that country where men have more authority than laws. For indeed that country deserves to be desired where every one may securely enjoy his own, not that where with facility it may be taken away; and that friends, for fear to lose their own, are enforced to forsake them.”
Walter Raleigh (1552–1618) said by 1618 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My visits to you may possibly be misunderstood by my friends; but I hope you know, Mr. Addington, that I have an unpurchasable mind.”
Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751–1816) first seen 1802 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remarks to the Prime Minister, Henry Addington (c. 1802), quoted in George Pellow, The Life and Correspondence of The Right Hon. Henry Addington, First Viscount of Sidmouth, Vol. II (1847), p. 105
“There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) said by 1817 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source