Sourced and curated.

I wish I loved the Human Race; I wish I loved its silly face; I wish I liked the way it walks; I wish I liked the way it talks; And when I'm introduced to one I wish I thought What Jolly Fun!

Walter Alexander Raleigh

1923

★ 0.8

The two great rules for design are these: 1st, that there should be no features about a building which are not necessary for convenience, construction or propriety; 2nd, that all ornament should consist of the essential construction of the building. The neglect of these two rules is the cause of all the bad architecture of the present time.

Augustus Welby Pugin

1841

★ 0.9

Autobiography and memoir

A man who entertains in his mind any political doctrine, except as a means of improving the condition of his fellows, I regard as a political intriguer, a charlatan, and a conjuror.

Anthony Trollope

1883

★ 0.9

Essay · Biography

Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily men of violence. We speak of "touching" a man's heart, but we can do nothing to his head but hit it.

G.K. Chesterton

1902

★ 0.9

Speech · Political speech

The wind of change is blowing through this continent, and, whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact.

Harold Macmillan

1960

★ 0.9

Poem · Epic poem

The gentle mind by gentle deeds is known. For a man by nothing is so well exposed, as by his manners.

Edmund Spenser

1596

★ 1.0

One of the greatest geniuses that ever existed, Shakespeare, undoubtedly wanted taste.

Horace Walpole

1764

★ 1.0

Economic literature

Labour, like all other things which are purchased and sold, and which may be increased or diminished in quantity, has its natural and its market price. The natural price of labor is that price which is necessary to enable the laborers, one with another, to subsist and perpetuate their race, without either increase or diminution.

David Ricardo

1817

★ 1.0

Let us reform our schools, and we shall find little reform needed in our prisons.

John Ruskin

Unto This Last · 1860

★ 1.0

Life being very short, and the quiet hours of it few, we ought to waste none of them in reading valueless books.

John Ruskin

Sesame and Lilies · 1864

★ 1.0

A quotation is a handy thing to have about, saving one the trouble of thinking for oneself.

A.A. Milne

The Record Lie · 1920

★ 1.0

Philosophical literature

For all knowledge and wonder (which is the seed of knowledge) is an impression of pleasure in itself.

Francis Bacon

1605

★ 1.1

Prosperity is not without many Feares and Distastes; and Adversity is not without Comforts and Hopes.

Francis Bacon

Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral · 1625

★ 1.1

Autobiography and memoir · Religious literature

Persecution is a bad and indirect way to plant Religion.

Sir Thomas Browne

Religio Medici · 1643

★ 1.1

Histories are more full of Examples of the Fidelity of dogs than of Friends.

Alexander Pope

1709

★ 1.1

Treatise · Legal writing

In all tyrannical governments, the supreme magistracy, or the right both of making and of enforcing the laws, is vested in one and the same man, or one and the same body of men; and wherever these two powers are united together, there can be no public liberty.

William Blackstone

Commentaries on the Laws of England · 1769

★ 1.1

She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that's best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes: Thus mellow'd to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

Lord Byron

She Walks in Beauty · 1815

★ 1.1

Poem · Magazine

I met a Lady in the Meads Full beautiful, a faery's child Her hair was long, her foot was light And her eyes were wild—

John Keats

1820

★ 1.1

Essay · Economic literature

Nothing contributes so much to the prosperity and happiness of a country as high profits.

David Ricardo

1822

★ 1.1

Religious literature

The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.

G.K. Chesterton

Orthodoxy · 1908

★ 1.1

A wise man will make more opportunties than he finds.

Francis Bacon

1625

★ 1.2

Political literature

Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.

John Milton

Areopagitica · 1644

★ 1.2

Pleasure is a thief to business.

Daniel Defoe

1726

★ 1.2

No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

1753

★ 1.2

O for a Life of Sensations rather than of Thoughts!

John Keats

1817

★ 1.2

Opera · Comedy

It is, it is a glorious thing To be a Pirate King.

W.S. Gilbert

1879

★ 1.2

Newspaper

Morning reading-like morning newspapers, morning sex, morning lie-ins, and morning running-is the luxury of childless people.

Zadie Smith

2016

★ 1.2

Political literature

Behold now this vast city: a city of refuge, the mansion house of liberty.

John Milton

Areopagitica · 1644

★ 1.3

Essay · Philosophical literature · Political literature

A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another.

John Stuart Mill

On Liberty · 1859

★ 1.3

Essay · Feminist literature

One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.

Virginia Woolf

A Room of One's Own · 1929

★ 1.3

Love is a thing as any spirit free.

Geoffrey Chaucer

The Canterbury Tales · 1400

★ 1.5

Magazine

By the "Establishment," I do not mean only the centers of official power-though they are certainly part of it-but rather the whole matrix of official and social relations within which power is exercised.

Henry Fairlie

1955

★ 1.7

I think continually of those who were truly great... The names of those who in their lives fought for life, Who wore at their hearts the fire's center. Born of the sun they traveled a short while towards the sun, And left the vivid air signed with their honor.

Stephen Spender

1955

★ 1.7

Essay · Political literature

To be conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss.

Michael Oakeshott

On Being Conservative · 1962

★ 1.7

We are a facing a mood and a movement far transcending the level of issues and policies and the governments that pursue them. This is no less than a clash of civilization-the perhaps irrational but surely historic reaction of an ancient rival against our Judeo-Christian heritage, our secular preseent, and the worldwide expansion of both.

Bernard Lewis

1990

★ 1.7

Speech · Political speech

It is... Time to get back to basics: to self-discipline and respect for the law, to consideration for others, to accepting responsibility for yourself and your family, and not shuffling it off on the state.

John Major

1993

★ 1.7