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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“I read your piece on Plato. Holmes, when you strike at a king, you must kill him.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Said to a young Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who had written a piece critical of Plato in response to his earlier conversation with Emerson, as reported by Felix Frankfurter in Harlan Buddington Phillips, Felix Frankfurt…
“One of the best things I read was an 1889 essay by Andrew Carnegie called The Gospel of Wealth. It makes the case that the wealthy have a responsibility to return their resources to society, a radical idea at the time that laid the groundwork for philanthropy as we know it today.”
Bill Gates (born 1955) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You've got to be willing to read other people's code, and then write your own, then have other people review your code. You've got to want to be in this incredible feedback loop where you get the world-class people to tell you what you're doing wrong...”
Bill Gates (born 1955) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The ones who are preoccupied by logic are above all; to read their works, one is tempted to believe they have advanced only step by step, after the manner of a Vauban who pushes on his trenches against the place besieged, leaving nothing to chance. The others are guided by intuition and, at the first stroke, make quick but sometimes precarious conquests, like bold cavalrymen of the advance guard.”
Henri Poincaré (1854–1912) said by 1912 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: quoted in Jacques Hadamard, An essay on the psychology of invention in the mathematical field (1954), pp. 106.
“What extracts from the Vedas I have read fall on me like the light of a higher and purer luminary, which describes a loftier course through purer stratum. It rises on me like the full moon after the stars have come out, wading through some far stratum in the sky.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) first seen 1850 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1850
“If you can speak what you will never hear, if you can write what you will never read, you have done rare things.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I do not know but it is too much to read one newspaper a week. I have tried it recently, and for so long it seems to me that I have not dwelt in my native region. The sun, the clouds, the snow, the trees say not so much to me. You cannot serve two masters. It requires more than a day's devotion to know and to possess the wealth of a day.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We may well be ashamed to tell what things we have read or heard in our day. I do not know why my news should be so trivial, — considering what one's dreams and expectations are, why the developments should be so paltry. The news we hear, for the most part, is not news to our genius. It is the stalest repetition.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Whenever I have read any part of the Vedas, I have felt that some unearthly and unknown light illuminated me. In the great teaching of the Vedas, there is no touch of sectarianism. It is of all ages, climes and nationalities and is the royal road for the attainment of the Great Knowledge. When I am at it, I feel that I am under the spangled heavens of a summer night.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in Bansi Pandit, The Hindu Mind (B & V Enterprises, 1996) p. 307
“Well, all I know is what I read in the papers.”
Will Rogers (1879–1935) first seen 1923 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Nationally syndicated column number 42, Blames All Ills on Earthquake (1923). This became a remark Rogers often used in his public appearances.
“The more that learn to read the less learn how to make a living. That's one thing about a little education. It spoils you for actual work. The more you know the more you think somebody owes you a living.”
Will Rogers (1879–1935) first seen 1597 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Daily Telegram #1597, Will Rogers Finds Larnin' Spoils One For Real Work (4 September 1931)
“The more you read and observe about this Politics thing, you got to admit that each party is worse than the other. The one that's out always looks the best.”
Will Rogers (1879–1935) said by 1935 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Fools have a habit of believing that everything written by a famous author is admirable. For my part I read only to please myself and like only what suits my taste.”
Voltaire (1694–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You can't shame or humiliate modern celebrities. What used to be called shame and humiliation is now called publicity. And forget traditional character assassination; if you say a modern celebrity is an adulterer, a pervert and a drug addict, all it means is that you've read his autobiography.”
P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Think before you speak. Read before you think. This will give you something to think about that you didn't make up yourself - a wise move at any age, but most especially at seventeen, when you are in the greatest danger of coming to annoying conclusions.”
Fran Lebowitz (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Now, when individuals read the entire transcript of the [March] 21st [1973] meeting, or hear the entire tape, where we discussed all these options, they may reach different interpretations, but I know what I meant, and I know also what I did.”
Richard Nixon (1913–1994) first seen 1974 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: News Conference (March 6, 1974)
“On Christmas Eve, during my terrible personal ordeal of the renewed bombing of North Vietnam, which after 12 years of war finally helped to bring America peace with honor, I sat down just before midnight. I wrote out some of my goals for my second term as President. Let me read them to you:”
Richard Nixon (1913–1994) said by 1994 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) said by 1784 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in the "Apophthegms, Sentiments, Opinions and Occasional Reflections" of Sir John Hawkins (1787-1789) in Johnsonian Miscellanies (1897), vol. II, p. 6, edited by George Birkbeck Hill
“The act of writing itself distracts the thoughts, and what is read twice is commonly better remembered than what is transcribed.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1759 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: No. 74 (15 September 1759)
“A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1763 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (14 July 1763) p. 121
“Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1773 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Recalling "what an old tutor of a college said to one of his pupils" (30 April 1773) p. 217
“I was looking for a name like the Crickets that meant two things, and from crickets I got to beetles. And I changed [to] B E A because … B E E T L E S didn't mean two things, so I changed … the E to an A. And it meant two things then. … When you said it, people thought of crawly things; and when you read it, it was beat music.”
John Lennon (1940–1980) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pop Chronicles: "Show 27 - The British Are Coming! The British Are Coming!: The U.S.A. is invaded by a wave of long-haired English rockers. Part 1" (24 August 1964).
“They were brutes, no doubt, but brutes who could not read, and who were dying of hunger.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) first seen 1885 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pt. 5, ch. 3 (tr. Havelock Ellis, 1885)
“To sit home, read one's favorite paper, and scoff at the misdeeds of the men who do things is easy, but it is markedly ineffective. It is what evil men count upon the good men's doing.”
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) first seen 1083 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Higher Life of American Cities", in The Outlook (21 December 1895), p. 1083-1085
“But it can hardly be read in a week. It takes some study.”
Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Happy the hare at morning, for she cannot read The Hunter's waking thoughts.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Dog Beneath the Skin (1935) act II, sc. 2, chorus
“I appeal to the philosophers of all countries to unite and never again mention Heidegger or talk to another philosopher who defends Heidegger. This man was a devil. I mean, he behaved like a devil to his beloved teacher, and he has a devilish influence on Germany. ... One has to read Heidegger in the original to see what a swindler he was.”
Karl Popper (1902–1994) first seen 1992 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "At 90, and Still Dynamic : Revisiting Sir Karl Popper and Attending His Birthday Party" by Eugene Yue-Ching Ho, in Intellectus 23 (Jul-Sep 1992)
“There is more to do. We need to prepare our children to read and succeed in school with improved Head Start and early childhood development programs. We must upgrade our teacher colleges and teacher training and launch a major recruiting drive with a great goal for America: a quality teacher in every classroom.”
George W. Bush (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One of the biggest roles of science fiction is to prepare people to accept the future without pain and to encourage a flexibility of mind. Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories. Two-thirds of 2001 is realistic — hardware and technology — to establish background for the metaphysical, philosophical, and religious meanings later.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The Making of Kubrick's 2001 (1970) by Jerome Agel, p. 300
“Can the word ‘best’ mean anything at all, except to some particular person in some particular mood? Perhaps not — so if we allow the word to stand as an absolute, you, or you, or perhaps you, may be appalled at omissions or inclusions or, never having read me before, may even be impelled to cry out, ‘Good heavens, are those his best?’”
Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) first seen 1973 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Introduction" in The Best of Isaac Asimov (1973)
“If you suspect that my interest in the Bible is going to inspire me with sudden enthusiasm for Judaism and make me a convert of mountain‐moving fervor and that I shall suddenly grow long earlocks and learn Hebrew and go about denouncing the heathen — you little know the effect of the Bible on me. Properly read, it is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.”
Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) said by 1992 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Notes for a Memoir : On Isaac Asimov, Life, and Writing (2006) by Janet Jeppson Asimov, p. 58
“Printing will tell you such useful things and such interesting things that not being able to read would be as bad as not being able to see.”
Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) said by 1992 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Once you realize that documentation should be laughed at, peed upon, put on fire, and just ridiculed in general, THEN, and only then, have you reached the level where you can safely read it and try to use it to actually implement a driver.”
Linus Torvalds (born 1969) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Of course, I'd also suggest that whoever was the genius who thought it was a good idea to read things ONE F*CKING BYTE AT A TIME with system calls for each byte should be retroactively aborted. Who the f*ck does idiotic things like that? How did they not die as babies, considering that they were likely too stupid to find a tit to suck on?”
Linus Torvalds (born 1969) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you haven't heard of Russian sanctions yet, you should try to read the news some day. And by "news", I don't mean Russian state-sponsored spam. As to sending me a revert patch - please use whatever mush you call brains. I'm Finnish. Did you think I'd be *supporting* Russian aggression? Apparently it's not just lack of real news, it's lack of history knowledge too.”
Linus Torvalds (born 1969) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And just as Charlie had surmised, Dodger hadn’t had a day’s proper schooling. Instead, his life had mostly been spent learning things, which is surprisingly rather different, and he could read a face much better than a newspaper.”
Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I see that you will never agree. I cannot help that. I can only read the evidence.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A machine has no mind to read; you never know when it’s going to betray you—”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And you remember, Rabbi Wise has declared, in a heated moment, that our plays seem to be written for the hosiery buyers. If Dr. Wise had only witnessed our new summer reviews, he doubtless would have amended his statement to “read by the hosiery buyers.” p.89”
Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) said by 1967 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The murdered man meets his death in an intriguing and novel manner, which the management asks its customers, as a personal favor, not to reveal to possible future audiences. It remains a secret, chummily shared by those that have seen the play and the four or five million who read it in its original form as a Saturday Evening Post story a year or so ago. p. 320”
Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) said by 1967 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Among a people without fellow-feeling, especially if they read and speak different languages, the united public opinion, necessary to the working of the representative government, cannot exist.”
John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) said by 1873 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Haven't read Koran so couldn't quote chapter & verse like I can for Bible. But often say Islam greatest force for evil today”
Richard Dawkins (born 1941) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (28 February 2013)
“I do think I go out of my way to be a very normal person and I just find it frustrating that people think that I'm some kind of weirdo reclusive that never comes out into the world. Y'know, I'm a very strong person and I think that's why actually I find it really infuriating when I read, 'She had a nervous breakdown' or 'She's not very mentally stable, just a weak, frail little creature'.”
“They open doorways that I thought were shut for good. They read me Gurdjieff and Jesu. They build up my body, break me emotionally. It's nearly killing me, but what a lovely feeling!”
“You and me on the bobbing knee. Didn't we cry at that old mythology he'd read! I will come home again, but not until The sun and the moon meet on yon hill.”
“If the United States haven't grown poets, on any scale of grandeur, it is certain that they import, print, and read more poetry than any equal number of people elsewhere — probably more than the rest of the world combined. Poetry (like a grand personality) is a growth of many generations — many rare combinations. To have great poets, there must be great audiences too.”
Walt Whitman (1819–1892) first seen 1892 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Complete Prose Works (1892), III. Notes Left Over 3. Ventures, on an Old Theme, p.324
“It is all as of old, the empty clangour, The scrawled on a five-foot page, The huckster who, mocking holy anger, Painfully paints his face with rage. * * * We that fight till the world is free, We have no comfort in victory; We have read each other as Cain his brother, We know each other, these slaves and we.”
G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I’ll read "Jack Redskin on the Quest" And feed my brain with better things.”
G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When we read of human beings behaving in certain ways, with the approval of the author, who gives his benediction to this behavior by his attitude towards the result of the behavior arranged by himself, we can be influenced towards behaving in the same way.”
T. S. Eliot (1888–1965) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Religion and Literature" (1935), in Essays Ancient and Modern (1936)
“Long ago I studied the ancient Indian languages, and while I was chiefly interested at that time in philosophy, I read a little poetry too; and I know that my own poetry shows the influence of Indian thought and sensibility.”
T. S. Eliot (1888–1965) first seen 1948 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1948)