Quotes of famous people
Popular topics
Authors
Tupac Shakur 154
rapper and actor 1971–1996
Barack Obama 1158
44th President of the United States of America 1961
William Shakespeare 699
English playwright and poet 1564–1616
George Orwell 473
English author and journalist 1903–1950
Oscar Wilde 812
Irish writer and poet 1854–1900Recommended quotes
Book 8, Ch. 98
variant: Not snow, no, nor rain, nor heat, nor night keeps them from accomplishing their appointed courses with all speed. (Book 8, Ch. 98)
Paraphrase: "Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds" ”
Appears carved over entrance to Central Post Office building in New York City.
The Histories
“This is the bitterest pain among men, to have much knowledge but no power.”
Book 9, Ch. 16
Variant translations:
Of all men's miseries the bitterest is this: to know so much and to have control over nothing.
The most hateful torment for men is to have knowledge of everything but power over nothing.
The Histories
“The only good is knowledge, and the only evil is ignorance.”
The words of Socrates, as quoted by Diogenes Laertius.
Misattributed
This statement is not to be found in the works of Herodotus. It appears in the acknowledgements to Mark Twain's A Horse's Tale (1907) preceded by the words "Herodotus says", but Twain was simply summarizing what he took to be Herodotus' attitude to historiography.
Misattributed
Source: Fashion, Faith, and Fantasy in the New Physics of the Universe (2016), Ch. 3 Fantasy, p 322
“While we cannot add days to your life, we can add life to your days”
“As many languages as you know, so many separate individuals you are worth.”
Variant: The more languages you know, the more human you become.
Source: John G. Robertson "Robertson's Words for a Modern Age: A Cross Reference of Latin and Greek Combining Elements" https://books.google.com.ua/books?id=RFqlPtTSB2kC&pg=PA250&lpg=PA250&dq=Quot+linguas+calles,+tot+homines+vales.&source=bl&ots=EtA4qFqwbn&sig=C9citjpkEkL6ZjovF9_4_AQ1cCw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwji4ICXl5XRAhULESwKHRp9C6cQ6AEILjAC#v=onepage&q=Quot%20linguas%20calles%2C%20tot%20homines%20vales.&f=false: "Attributed to Charles V"
Quoted in Bernard Weintraub, "Playboy Interview: Johnny Depp," Playboy (May 2004)
Context: I do have an affinity for damaged people, in life, in roles. I don't know why. We're all damaged in our own way. Nobody's perfect. I think we are all somewhat screwy, every single one of us.
“Music touches us emotionally, where words alone can't.”
“The problem is that everybody treats teenagers like they're stupid.”
A Warsaw Diary, in Granta [magazine], no. 15 (Cambridge, England, 1985)
To a secretary, as quoted in Tesla: Man Out of Time (1998) by Margaret Cheney, p. 127 (footnote). https://books.google.pl/books/about/Tesla.html?id=HIuK7iLO9zgC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&hl=en&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Never%20trust%20a%20Jew&f=false
Tesla's anti-Semitism appeared sporadic and was unusual among gentiles of his time.
Attributed to Glenn Gould (1962) in Payzant (Glenn Gould: Music and Mind), p. 64
Gramophone
Context: I think that if I were required to spend the rest of my life on a desert island, and to listen to or play the music of any one composer during all that time, that composer would almost certainly be Bach. I really can't think of any other music which is so all-encompassing, which moves me so deeply and so consistently, and which, to use a rather imprecise word, is valuable beyond all of its skill and brilliance for something more meaningful than that -- its humanity.
