Sourced and curated.

And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Inaugural Address of John F. Kennedy · 1961

★ 9.0

Philosophical literature

George Santayana

The Life of Reason · 1905

★ 8.8

Remember that Time is Money.

Rebellion to Tyrants is obedience to God.

The American Instructor: or Young Man's Best Companion · 1748

★ 8.5

Epitaph

1775

★ 8.4

Go West, young man.

Horace Greeley

1870

★ 8.3

Our life is frittered away by detail…. Simplify, simplify.

Walden · 1854

★ 7.8

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

Walden · 1854

★ 7.8

Diligence is the mother of good luck.

1736

★ 7.6

Early to Bed and early to rise, makes a Man healthy, wealthy and wise.

1735

★ 7.5

Fish and Visitors stink after three days.

1736

★ 7.5

Haste makes Waste.

1753

★ 7.5

Little strokes fell great Oaks.

A government of laws, and not of men.

1750

★ 7.4

Essay · Newspaper

1775

★ 7.2

Always do what you are afraid to do.

Essays: First Series (Emerson) · 1841

★ 7.2

For of those to whom much is given, much is required.

1961

★ 7.2

I agree with you, that in Politicks the Middle Way is none at all.

1776

★ 7.1

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

Walden · 1854

★ 7.1

I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

Walden · 1854

★ 7.1

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

Walden · 1854

★ 7.1

Ich bin ein Berliner.

1963

★ 7.1

In skating over thin ice our safety is in our speed.

The happiness of society is the end of government.

Essays: First Series (Emerson) · 1841

★ 7.1

Pamphlet · Political literature

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

1776

★ 7.1

Essay · Political literature

1755

★ 7.1

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

The body of B. Franklin, Printer; Like the cover of an old Book, Its Contents torn out, And stript of its lettering and gilding, Lies here, food for worms. But the work shall not be wholly lost: For it will, as he believ’d, appear once more, In a new & more perfect edition, Corrected and amended By the Author.

Inaugural Address of John F. Kennedy · 1961

★ 7.0

Epitaph

1728

★ 7.0

Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency, but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes!

Letters of Benjamin Franklin · 1789

★ 7.0

The Revolution was effected before the War commenced. The Revolution was in the Minds and Hearts of the People.

This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.

1818

★ 7.0

Speech

Our country is the world — our countrymen are all mankind.

1837

★ 7.0

Newspaper

William Lloyd Garrison

The Liberator · 1837

★ 7.0

The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one.

Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.

Essays: First Series (Emerson) · 1841

★ 7.0

Novel

Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Marble Faun · 1860

★ 7.0

The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression, even though that cost be blood.

W.E.B. Du Bois

1909

★ 7.0

Remember the Alamo!

Sidney Sherman

1836

★ 6.9

Personal journal

Come out of your warm, angular house, resounding with few voices, into the chill, grand, instantaneous night, with such a Presence as a full moon in the clouds.

1838

★ 6.9

Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, had always been the systematic organization of hatreds.

Henry Adams

The Education of Henry Adams · 1907

★ 6.9

Supreme Court opinion · Legal opinion · Legal writing

Taxes are what we pay for civilized society.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Compania General de Tabacos de Filipinas v. Collector of Internal Revenue · 1927

★ 6.9

All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words "Ich bin ein Berliner!"

We sometimes congratulate ourselves at the moment of waking from a troubled dream; it may be so the moment after death.

1963

★ 6.2

Novel

Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Scarlet Letter · 1836

★ 6.1

In the true marriage relation, the independence of the husband and wife is equal, the dependence mutual and their obligations reciprocal.

Lucretia Mott

1880

★ 6.1

Newspaper

I am about Courting a Girl I have had but little Acquaintance with; how shall I come to a Knowledge of her Fawlts? and whether she has the Virtues I imagine she has? Answ. Commend her among her Female Acquaintance.

If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free thought—not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate.

1732

★ 6.0

Supreme Court opinion · Legal opinion · Legal writing

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

United States v. Schwimmer · 1929

★ 6.0

In the long run men hit only what they aim at.

Walden · 1854

★ 5.6

He that lieth down with Dogs, shall rise up with Fleas.

1733

★ 5.5

God helps them that help themselves.

1736

★ 5.5

Experience keeps a dear school, yet Fools will learn In no other.

1743

★ 5.5

When the well’s dry, we know the worth of water.

1746

★ 5.5

Genius without Education is like Silver in the Mine.

1750

★ 5.5

Love your Neighbor; yet don't pull down your Hedge.

A republic, if you can keep it.

1754

★ 5.5

Speech

I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship.

1787

★ 5.5

Novel · Coming of age story

Louisa May Alcott

Little Women · 1868

★ 5.5

Sociology

Why did God make me an outcast and a stranger in mine own house?

W.E.B. Du Bois

The Souls of Black Folk · 1903

★ 5.5

Tart Words make no Friends: a spoonful of honey will catch more flies than a Gallon of Vinegar.

1744

★ 5.5

Old Boys have their Playthings as well as young Ones; the Difference is only in the Price.

Give me a wildness whose glance no civilization can endure.

1752

★ 5.5

Lecture

Walking (Thoreau) · 1851

★ 5.5

Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end... We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate.

Walden · 1854

★ 5.5

Men are what their mothers made them.

Fate · 1860

★ 5.5

Our chief want in life is, somebody who shall make us do what we can.

Considerations by the Way · 1860

★ 5.5

He that falls in love with himself, will have no Rivals.

If the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him.

1738

★ 5.4

Speech