The Quotes canon
Sourced and curated.
Every quote has been curated by hand and carefully authenticated.
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.
Political literature64 quotes
He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. — John Stuart Mill · 1859No man chooses evil, because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks. — Mary Wollstonecraft · 1790A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for...is a miserable creature, who has no chance of being free. — John Stuart Mill · 1862We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still. — John Stuart Mill · 1859The fatal tendency of mankind to leave off thinking about a thing when it is no longer doubtful, is the cause of half their errors. — John Stuart Mill · 1859An opinion that corn-dealers are starvers of the poor, or that private property is robbery, ought to be unmolested when simply circulated through the press, but may justly incur punishment when delivered orally to an excited mob assembled before the house of a corn-dealer. — John Stuart Mill · 1859All 64 quotes →Philosophical literature50 quotes
He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. — John Stuart Mill · 1859No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings. — William Blake · 1793The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom. — William Blake · 1793A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for...is a miserable creature, who has no chance of being free. — John Stuart Mill · 1862Ancient times were the youth of the world. — Francis Bacon · 1605For what a man had rather were true he more readily believes. — Francis Bacon · 1620All 50 quotes →Religious literature41 quotes
Long is the way
And hard, that out of Hell leads up to Light. — John Milton · 1667O fairest of Creation, last and best
Of all God's works. — John Milton · 1667Her rash hand in evil hour
Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she ate:
Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat
Sighing through all her works gave signs of woe
That all was lost. — John Milton · 1667Of Man's First Disobedience, and the fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste
Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,
Sing, Heav'nly Muse. — John Milton · 1667What in me is dark
Illumine, what is low raise and support;
That to the height of this great Argument
I may assert Eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men. — John Milton · 1667Who overcomes
By force hath overcome but half his foe. — John Milton · 1667All 41 quotes →Epic poem26 quotes
Long is the way
And hard, that out of Hell leads up to Light. — John Milton · 1667O fairest of Creation, last and best
Of all God's works. — John Milton · 1667Her rash hand in evil hour
Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she ate:
Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat
Sighing through all her works gave signs of woe
That all was lost. — John Milton · 1667Of Man's First Disobedience, and the fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste
Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,
Sing, Heav'nly Muse. — John Milton · 1667What in me is dark
Illumine, what is low raise and support;
That to the height of this great Argument
I may assert Eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men. — John Milton · 1667Who overcomes
By force hath overcome but half his foe. — John Milton · 1667All 26 quotes →Autobiography and memoir14 quotes
There is no road or ready way to vertue. — Sir Thomas Browne · 1643Obstinacy in a bad cause, is but constancy in a good. — Sir Thomas Browne · 1643But how shall we expect charity towards others, when we are uncharitable to our selves? — Sir Thomas Browne · 1643There is surely a peece of Divinity in us, something that was before the Elements, and owes no homage unto the Sun. — Sir Thomas Browne · 1643A man may be in as just possession of Truth as of a City, and yet bee forced to surrender. — Sir Thomas Browne · 1643It is not the attainment of the goal that matters, it is the things that are met with by the way. — Havelock Ellis · 1923All 14 quotes →Feminist literature14 quotes
It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world. — Mary Wollstonecraft · 1792Why are women…so much more interesting to men than men are to women? — Virginia Woolf · 1929I do not wish them to have power over men; but over themselves. — Mary Wollstonecraft · 1792There is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind. — Virginia Woolf · 1929The beauty of the world which is so soon to perish, has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart asunder. — Virginia Woolf · 1929Women are systematically degraded by receiving the trivial attentions, which men think it manly to pay to the sex, when, in fact, they are insultingly supporting their own superiority. — Mary Wollstonecraft · 1792All 14 quotes →Political speech12 quotes
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom: it is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. — William Pitt, Earl of Chatham · 1783To protect the workers in their inalienable rights to a higher and better life; to protect them, not only as equals before the law, but also in their health, their homes, their firesides, their liberties as men, as workers, and as citizens; to overcome and conquer prejudice and antagonism; to secure to them the right to life, and the opportunity to maintain that life; the right to be full sharers in the abundance which is the result of their brain and brawn, and the civilization of which they are the founders and the mainstay... The attainment of these is the glorious mission of the trade unions. — Samuel Gompers · 1898We have no eternal allies and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and these interests it is our duty to follow. — Henry John Temple · 1848Let us be frank about it: most of our people have never had it so good. — Harold Macmillan · 1957You cannot conquer America. — William Pitt, Earl of Chatham · 1777Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it. — William Pitt, Earl of Chatham · 1770All 12 quotes →Rock music12 quotes
I can't get no satisfaction,
I can't get no girl reaction. — The Rolling Stones · 1965You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes
You just might find
You get what you need. — The Rolling Stones · 1969I hope I die before I get old. — The Who · 1965We don't need no education.
We don't need no thought control.
No dark sarcasm in the classroom.
Teacher, leave them kids alone.
Hey! Teacher! Leave them kids alone! — Pink Floyd · 1979Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss. — The Who · 1971Did you see the frightened ones? Did you hear the falling bombs? Did you ever wonder why we had to run for shelter when the promise of a brave new world unfurled beneath a clear blue sky? — Pink Floyd · 1979All 12 quotes →Tragedy (play)9 quotes
Boast not of what thou would'st have done, but do
What then thou would'st. — John Milton · 1671Love-quarrels oft in pleasing concord end;
Not wedlock-treachery. — John Milton · 1671Twas only fear first in the world made gods. — Ben Jonson · 1603Just are the ways of God,
And justifiable to men;
Unless there be who think not God at all. — John Milton · 1671Apt words have power to suage
The tumours of a troubled mind. — John Milton · 1671I know death hath ten thousand several doors
For men to take their exits. — John Webster · 1614All 9 quotes →Legal writing8 quotes
The king, moreover, is not only incapable of doing wrong, but even of thinking wrong: he can never mean to do an improper thing: in him is no folly or weakness. — William Blackstone · 1765Man was formed for society. — William Blackstone · 1765Whence it is that in our law the goodness of a custom depends upon its having been used time out of mind; or, in the solemnity of our legal phrase, time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary. — William Blackstone · 1765All presumptive evidence of felony should be admitted cautiously; for the law holds, that it is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer. — William Blackstone · 1769Our civilization has decided, and very justly decided, that determining the guilt or innocence of men is a thing too important to be trusted to trained men.... When it wants a library catalogued, or the solar system discovered, or any trifle of that kind, it uses up its specialists. But when it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing round. — G.K. Chesterton · 1909That the king can do no wrong, is a necessary and fundamental principle of the English constitution. — William Blackstone · 1765All 8 quotes →Comedy6 quotes
Faint heart never won fair lady!
Nothing venture, nothing win-
Blood is thick, but water's thin-
In for a penny, in for a pound-
It's Love that makes the world go round! — W.S. Gilbert · 1882There shall be no love lost. — Ben Jonson · 1599Vain the ambition of kings
Who seek by trophies and death things
To leave a living name behind,
And weave but nets to catch the wind. — John Webster · 1619The world has joked incessantly for over fifty centuries.
And every joke that's possible has long ago been made. — W.S. Gilbert · 1894Certain women should be struck regularly, like gongs. — Noel Coward · 1930It is, it is a glorious thing
To be a Pirate King. — W.S. Gilbert · 1879Comedy (play)6 quotes
Suns, that set, may rise again:
But if, once, we lose this light,
'Tis with us perpetual night. — Ben Jonson · 1606I glory
More in the cunning purchase of my wealth,
Than in the glad possession. — Ben Jonson · 1606There shall be no love lost. — Ben Jonson · 1599Calumnies are answered best with silence. — Ben Jonson · 1606Vain the ambition of kings
Who seek by trophies and death things
To leave a living name behind,
And weave but nets to catch the wind. — John Webster · 1619Certain women should be struck regularly, like gongs. — Noel Coward · 1930Economic literature6 quotes
There is no way of keeping profits up but by keeping wages down. — David Ricardo · 1822Rent is that portion of the produce of the earth, which is paid to the landlord for the use of the original and indestructible powers of the soil. — David Ricardo · 1817No man made the land. It is the original inheritance of the whole species. Its appropriation is wholly a question of general expediency. When private property in land is not expedient, it is unjust. — John Stuart Mill · 1848Improvements succeeded each other so rapidly, that machines which had never been finished were abandoned in the hands of their makers, because new improvements had superseded their utility. — Charles Babbage · 1832Nothing contributes so much to the prosperity and happiness of a country as high profits. — David Ricardo · 1822Labour, 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 · 1817Satire6 quotes
They wonder much to hear that gold, which in itself is so useless a thing, should be everywhere so much esteemed, that even men for whom it was made, and by whom it has its value, should yet be thought of less value than it is. — Thomas More · 1516They have no lawyers among them, for they consider them as a sort of people whose profession it is to disguise matters. — Thomas More · 1516True happinesse
Consists not in the multitude of friends,
But in the worth, and choice. — Ben Jonson · 1600Wherever God erects a house of prayer,
The Devil always builds a chapel there;
And 'twill be found upon examination,
The latter has the largest congregation. — Daniel Defoe · 1701There shall be no love lost. — Ben Jonson · 1599Anyone who campaigns for public office becomes disqualified for holding any office at all. — Thomas More · 1516Tragedy6 quotes
Boast not of what thou would'st have done, but do
What then thou would'st. — John Milton · 1671Love-quarrels oft in pleasing concord end;
Not wedlock-treachery. — John Milton · 1671Apt words have power to suage
The tumours of a troubled mind. — John Milton · 1671I know death hath ten thousand several doors
For men to take their exits. — John Webster · 1614Yet beauty, though injurious, hath strange power,
After offence returning, to regain
Love once possessed. — John Milton · 1671Vain the ambition of kings
Who seek by trophies and death things
To leave a living name behind,
And weave but nets to catch the wind. — John Webster · 1619Detective fiction5 quotes
Alcohol is like love...The first kiss is magic, the second is intimate, the third is routine. After that you take the girl's clothes off. — Raymond Chandler · 1953I don't mind if you don't like my manners. They're pretty bad. I grieve over them during the long winter evenings. — Raymond Chandler · 1939A big hard-boiled city with no more personality than a paper cup. — Raymond Chandler · 1949It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window. — Raymond Chandler · 1940Law is where you buy it in this town. — Raymond Chandler · 1940Children's literature3 quotes
Don't go into Mr. McGregor's garden: your father had an accident there, he was put into a pie by Mrs. McGregor. — Beatrix Potter · 1902Eeyore was saying to himself, "This writing business. Pencils and what-not. Over-rated, if you ask me. Silly stuff. Nothing in it." — A.A. Milne · 1926When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it. — A.A. Milne · 1928Pop music3 quotes
Well, I've been afraid of changing
'Cause I've built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Even children get older
And I'm getting older too. — Fleetwood Mac · 1975How wonderful life is while you're in the world. — Elton John · 1970We'll meet again,
Don't know where, don't know when,
But I know we'll meet again some sunny day. — Vera Lynn · 1939Scientific literature3 quotes
I propose to consider the question, "Can machines think?" — Alan Turing · 1950The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate anything. It can do whatever to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform. It can follow analysis; but it has no power of anticipating any analytical relations or truths. — Ada Lovelace · 1843Science is nothing but trained and organized common sense, differing from the latter only as a veteran may differ from a raw recruit: and its methods differ from those of common sense only as far as the guardsman's cut and thrust differ from the manner in which a savage wields his club. — T.H. Huxley · 1880Travel writing3 quotes
As to the sea itself, love it you cannot. Why should you? I will never believe again the sea was ever loved by anyone whose life was married to it. It is the creation of Omnipotence, which is not of humankind and understandable, and so the springs of its behavior are hidden. — Henry Major Tomlinson · 1912When a traveller returneth home, let him not leave the countries where he hath travelled altogether behind him. — Francis Bacon · 1625Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience. He that travelleth into a country before he hath some entrance into the language, goeth to school, and not to travel. — Francis Bacon · 1625Drama2 quotes
America is God's crucible, the great melting pot where all the races of Europe are melting and reforming! — Israel Zangwill · 1908We keep saying old people are square. Then when they suddenly aren't-we don't like it! — Peter Shaffer · 1973Drama (play)2 quotes
America is God's crucible, the great melting pot where all the races of Europe are melting and reforming! — Israel Zangwill · 1908We keep saying old people are square. Then when they suddenly aren't-we don't like it! — Peter Shaffer · 1973Historical fiction2 quotes
Tis not the dying for a faith that's so hard, Master Harry-every man of every nation has done that-'tis the living up to it that's difficult. — William Makepeace Thackeray · 1852Women like not only to conquer, but to be conquered. — William Makepeace Thackeray · 1859Historical literature2 quotes
Men wiser and more learned than I have discerned in history a plot, a rhythm, a predetermined pattern. These harmonies are concealed from me. I can see only one emergency following upon another as wave follows upon wave. — H.A.L. Fisher · 1935Every intellectual product must be judged from the point of view of the age and the people in which it was produced. — Walter Pater · 1873Biography1 quote
The history of the Victorian Age will never be written: we know too much about it. For ignorance is the first requisite of the historian-ignorance, which simplifies and clarifies, which selects and omits, with a placid perfection unattainable by the highest art. — Lytton Strachey · 1918Comedy of manners1 quote
Certain women should be struck regularly, like gongs. — Noel Coward · 1930Folk rock1 quote
Mother needs something today to calm her down,
And though she's not really ill,
There's a little yellow pill
She goes running for the shelter
Of her mother's little helper
And it helps her on her way,
Gets her through her busy day. — The Rolling Stones · 1966History play1 quote
The pen is mightier than the sword. — Edward Bulwer-Lytton · 1839Masque (play)1 quote
Yet where an equal poise of hope and fear
Does arbitrate the event, my nature is
That I incline to hope rather than fear,
And gladly banish squint suspicion. — John Milton · 1634Philosophical writing1 quote
I will call no being good, who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow-creatures; and if such a being can sentence me to hell for not so calling him, to hell I will go. — John Stuart Mill · 1865