These are the ten most popular quotes (based on hit counts) from my WIST quotations site. Why are they the most popular? No idea. But I thought they might be of interest.
And were an epitaph to be my story, I’d have a short one ready for my own. I would have written of me on my stone: I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.
— Robert Frost (1874-1963) American poet
“The Lesson for Today,” A Witness Tree (1942)
Initially read before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, Harvard (20 Jun 1941)
Wisdom comes through suffering.
Trouble, with its memories of pain,
Drips in our hearts as we try to sleep,
So men against their will
Learn to practice moderation.
Favours come to us from gods.— Aeschylus (525-456 BC) Greek dramatist (Æschylus)
Agamemnon, l. 179Alt. trans.:
“He who learns must suffer
And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget
Falls drop by drop upon the heart,
And in our own despite, against our will,
Comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.”The above alternate was misquoted by Robert Kennedy in his speech on the assassination of Martin Luther King (4 Apr 1968). Kennedy’s family used it as an epitaph on his grave Arlington National Cemetery:
“In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”
I want death to find me planting my cabbages.
— Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) French essayist
“That to Philosophize Is to Learn to Die,” Essays (1588) [tr. D. Frame (1958)]
Whether we believe the Greek poet, “it is sometimes even pleasant to be mad”, or Plato, “he who is master of himself has knocked in vain at the doors of poetry”; or Aristotle, “no great genius was without a mixture of insanity”; the mind cannot express anything lofty and above the ordinary unless inspired. When it despises the common and the customary, and with sacred inspiration rises higher, then at length it sings something grander than that which can come from mortal lips. It cannot attain anything sublime and lofty so long as it is sane: it must depart from the customary, swing itself aloft, take the bit in its teeth, carry away its rider and bear him to a height whither he would have feared to ascend alone.
— Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC-AD 65) Roman statesman, philosopher, playwright [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
Moral Essays, “On Tranquility of Mind [De Tranquillitate Animi]“, 17.10 [tr. W. Langsdorf (1900)]Full text. Source of this Aristotle quote.
In my heart there may be doubt that I deserve the Nobel award over other men of letters whom I hold in respect and reverence — but there is no question of my pleasure and pride in having it for myself.
— John Steinbeck (1902-1968) American writer
Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962)
Full text.
The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.
— Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933)
And is he dead whose glorious mind
Lifts thine on high?
To live in the hearts we leave
Is not to die!— Thomas Campbell (1777–1844) Scottish poet
“Hallowed Ground” (1825)
What separates me from most atheists is a feeling of utter humility toward the unattainable secrets of the harmony of the cosmos. The fanatical atheists are like the slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who — in their grudge against traditional religion as the “opium of the masses” — cannot hear the music of the spheres. I prefer the attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and our own being. Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
— Albert Einstein (1879-1955) German-American physicist
“Science, Philosophy and Religion: a Symposium” (1941)
The true friend of property, the true conservative, is he who insists that property shall be the servant and not the master of the commonwealth; who insists that the creature of man’s making shall be the servant and not the master of the man who made it.
— Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) US President (1901-1909)
“The New Nationalism,” speech, Osawatomie, Kansas (31 Aug 1910)
Full text.
It contributes greatly towards a man’s moral and intellectual health, to be brought into habits of companionship with individuals unlike himself, who care little for his pursuits, and whose sphere and abilities he must go out of himself to appreciate.
— Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) American writer
The Scarlet Letter, “Introduction: The Custom-House” (1850)
Again, no idea why these are so popular. But there you go.