The Quotes canon
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Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
The Renaissance44 quotes
In the country of the blind the one-eyed man is king. — Erasmus · 1536Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date. — William Shakespeare · 1609There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries. — William Shakespeare · 1599Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. — William Shakespeare · 1616Love comforteth like sunshine after rain. — William Shakespeare · 1593His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find them, and when you have them, they are not worth the search. — William Shakespeare · 1598All 44 quotes →Classical antiquity23 quotes
One swallow does not make a spring. — Aristotle · 322 BCBe like a headland of rock on which the waves break incessantly: but it stands fast and around it the seething of the waters sinks to rest. — Marcus Aurelius · 180Time, the devourer of all things. — Ovid · 8A rolling stone gathers no moss. — Publilius Syrus · 43 BCIf a person knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favorable. — Seneca · 65The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. — Tertullian · 197All 23 quotes →Age of Enlightenment7 quotes
Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made. — Immanuel Kant · 1784Make the Revolution a parent of settlement, and not a nursery of future revolutions. — Edmund Burke · 1790Crooked things may be as stiff and unflexible as straight; and men may be as positive and peremptory in error as in truth. — John Locke · 1690Laws, like houses, lean on one another. — Edmund Burke · 1760Money... Is none of the wheels of trade: It is the oil which renders the motion of the wheels more smooth and easy. — David Hume · 1752Satire is a sort of glass wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own. — Jonathan Swift · 1704All 7 quotes →Colonial America6 quotes
Fish and Visitors stink after three days. — Benjamin Franklin · 1736Little strokes fell great Oaks. — Benjamin Franklin · 1750When the well’s dry, we know the worth of water. — Benjamin Franklin · 1746He that lieth down with Dogs, shall rise up with Fleas. — Benjamin Franklin · 1733Great Estates may venture more;
Little Boats must keep near Shore. — Benjamin Franklin · 1751Glass, China, and Reputation, are easily crack’d, and never well mended. — Benjamin Franklin · 1750Ancient World5 quotes
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. — Lao Tzu · 400 BCIf you desire what is good, the people will be good. The character of a ruler is like wind and that of the people is like grass. In whatever direction the wind blows the grass always bends. — Confucius · 221 BCWhen a pair of magpies fly together
They do not envy the pair of phoenixes. — Lady Ho · 300 BCThe tendency of man's nature to good is like the tendency of water to flow downwards. — Mencius · 300 BCThe people turn to a benevolent rule as water flows downwards, and as wild beasts fly to the wilderness. — Mencius · 300 BCOld Testament Era5 quotes
As for man, his days are like grass; As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.
For the wind passes over it, and it is gone, And its place remembers it no more. — Psalm 103:15-16 · 450 BCAll we like sheep have gone astray. — Isaiah · 681 BCBut let justice run down like water,
And righteousness like a mighty stream. — Amos 5:24 · 750 BCMany waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it. — Song of Solomon 8:7 · 1000 BCThey have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind. — Hosea, 8:7 · 710 BCNew Testament Era4 quotes
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. — Jesus · 60All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away. — 1st Peter 1:24 · 65I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. — Jesus · 90Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost. — Luke 15:6 · 61Early Christianity2 quotes
He cannot have God for his father who has not the church for his mother. — St. Cyprian · 251If there is but little water in the stream, it is the fault, not of the channel, but of the source. — St. Jerome · 379Middle Ages1 quote
I am dying of thirst by the side of the fountain. — Charles d'Orleans · 1440