Sourced and curated.

The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman.

You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out.

O Pioneers! · 1913

★ 5.5

Open letter · Letter

When the white men came we gave them lands, and did not wish to hurt them. But the white man drove us back and took our lands. Then the Great Father made us many promises, but they are not kept. He promised to give us large presents, and when they came to us they were small; they seemed to be lost on the way.

2001

★ 5.5

Speech

Red Cloud

1870

★ 5.2

Lecture

The law must be stable, and yet it cannot stand still.

Roscoe Pound

1921

★ 5.2

Along the vital Pacific Coast over 112,000 potential enemies, of Japanese extraction, are at large today. There are indications that these are organized and ready for concerted action at a favorable opportunity. The very fact that no sabotage has taken place to date is a disturbing and confirming indication that such action will be taken

John L. DeWitt

1942

★ 5.0

Men travel faster now, but I do not know if they go to better things.

Death Comes for the Archbishop · 1929

★ 3.8

We come and go, but the land is always here. And the people who love it and understand it are the people who own it-for a little while.

O Pioneers! · 1913

★ 3.7

I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do.

O Pioneers! · 1913

★ 3.7

There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.

The Song of the Lark · 1915

★ 3.7

There was nothing but land; not a country at all, but the material out of which countries are made.

My Antonia · 1918

★ 3.7

That is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep.

My Antonia · 1918

★ 3.7

Winter lies too long in country towns; hangs on until it is stale and shabby, old and sullen.

My Antonia · 1918

★ 3.7

There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before; like the larks in this country, that have been singing the same five notes over for thousands of years.

O Pioneers! · 1913

★ 3.6

People live through such pain only once. Pain comes again-but it finds a tougher surface.

In the business world... The rear-view mirror is always clearer than the windshield.

The Song of the Lark · 1915

★ 3.6

Letter · Letter to shareholders

One cannot divine nor forecast the conditions that will make happiness; one only stumbles upon them by chance, in a lucky hour, at the world's end somewhere, and holds fast to the days, as to fortune or fame.

1991 Letter to Shareholders · 1992

★ 3.6

Autobiography and memoir

There's nothing so dangerous as sitting still. You've only got one life, one youth, and you can let it slip through your fingers if you want to; nothing easier. Most people do that.

1902

★ 3.5

Short story

1912

★ 3.5

Where there is great love, there are always miracles.

Death Comes for the Archbishop · 1927

★ 2.1

I tell you, there is such a thing as creative hate!

The Song of the Lark · 1915

★ 2.0

Whatever we had missed, we possessed together the precious, the incommunicable past.

Buy stocks like you buy your groceries, not like you buy your perfume.

My Antonia · 1918

★ 2.0

Magazine

1992

★ 2.0

The world is little, people are little, human life is little. There is only one big thing-desire.

The Song of the Lark · 1915

★ 1.9

Only solitary men know the full joys of friendship. Others have their family-but to a solitary and an exile his friends are everything.

In a dying culture, narcissism appears to embody-in the guise of personal "growth" and "awareness"-the highest attainment of spiritual enlightenment. The custodians of culture hope, at bottom, merely to survive its collapse.

Shadows on the Rock · 1931

★ 1.9

Sociology

Christopher Lasch

The Culture of Narcissism · 1979

★ 1.7

Newspaper

Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.

It's far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.

2008

★ 1.2

Letter · Letter to shareholders