The authors

Socrates

c. 470–399 BC · Athenian philosopher

7 quotes

10 quotes wrongly credited to them

Thomas Jefferson

1743–1826 · 3rd U.S. President & principal author of the Declaration of Independence

5 quotes

10 quotes wrongly credited to them

C.S. Lewis

1898–1963 · Oxford & Cambridge scholar, author of Mere Christianity

3 quotes

10 quotes wrongly credited to them

Gautama Buddha

c. 5th century BCE · founder of Buddhism · northern India

1 quote

10 quotes wrongly credited to them

Benjamin Franklin

1706–1790 · American printer, scientist and statesman

10 quotes

9 quotes wrongly credited to them

Confucius

551–479 BCE · Chinese philosopher and teacher

8 quotes

9 quotes wrongly credited to them

William Shakespeare

1564–1616 · English playwright & poet

7 quotes

9 quotes wrongly credited to them

Mark Twain

1835–1910 · American humorist, novelist & lecturer

6 quotes

9 quotes wrongly credited to them

Ralph Waldo Emerson

1803–1882 · American essayist, lecturer & Transcendentalist

6 quotes

9 quotes wrongly credited to them

George Washington

1732–1799 · First U.S. President & Commander-in-Chief

5 quotes

9 quotes wrongly credited to them

John F. Kennedy

1917–1963 · 35th U.S. President

7 quotes

8 quotes wrongly credited to them

Aristotle

384–322 BC · Greek philosopher · student of Plato, tutor of Alexander

6 quotes

8 quotes wrongly credited to them

Mahatma Gandhi

1869–1948 · Leader of Indian independence & apostle of nonviolence

5 quotes

8 quotes wrongly credited to them

Plato

c. 428–348 BC · Athenian philosopher · author of the Republic

4 quotes

8 quotes wrongly credited to them

Martin Luther King Jr.

1929–1968 · Baptist minister & civil-rights leader

7 quotes

7 quotes wrongly credited to them

Abraham Lincoln

1809–1865 · 16th President of the United States

6 quotes

7 quotes wrongly credited to them

Sun Tzu

trad. c. 544 – c. 496 BCE · Chinese general & military strategist

6 quotes

7 quotes wrongly credited to them

Napoleon Bonaparte

1769–1821 · Emperor of the French, military commander

5 quotes

7 quotes wrongly credited to them

Leonardo da Vinci

1452–1519 · Florentine painter, engineer & polymath

2 quotes

7 quotes wrongly credited to them

Henry David Thoreau

1817–1862 · American essayist, poet & naturalist

13 quotes

6 quotes wrongly credited to them

Friedrich Nietzsche

1844–1900 · German philosopher & classical philologist

9 quotes

6 quotes wrongly credited to them

Winston Churchill

1874–1965 · British prime minister, statesman & author

7 quotes

6 quotes wrongly credited to them

Albert Einstein

1879–1955 · Theoretical physicist

6 quotes

6 quotes wrongly credited to them

Thomas Edison

1847–1931 · American inventor & electric-light entrepreneur

6 quotes

6 quotes wrongly credited to them

Lao Tzu

trad. 6th century BC · Chinese sage · founder of Taoism · credited author of the Tao Te Ching

5 quotes

6 quotes wrongly credited to them

Ronald Reagan

1911–2004 · 40th President of the United States

5 quotes

6 quotes wrongly credited to them

Henry Ford

1863–1947 · American industrialist

4 quotes

6 quotes wrongly credited to them

Sigmund Freud

1856–1939 · Founder of psychoanalysis · after Dmitry Merezhkovsky

4 quotes

6 quotes wrongly credited to them

Voltaire

1694–1778 · French Enlightenment writer, philosopher & satirist

4 quotes

6 quotes wrongly credited to them

Marilyn Monroe

1926–1962 · American actress, model & cultural icon

3 quotes

6 quotes wrongly credited to them

Charles Darwin

1809–1882 · English naturalist · author of On the Origin of Species

2 quotes

6 quotes wrongly credited to them

Marcus Aurelius

121–180 AD · Roman emperor & Stoic philosopher

15 quotes

5 quotes wrongly credited to them

George Bernard Shaw

1856–1950 · Irish playwright, critic & Nobel laureate

5 quotes

5 quotes wrongly credited to them

Bob Marley

1945–1981 · Jamaican reggae musician & songwriter

3 quotes

5 quotes wrongly credited to them

Paulo Coelho

b. 1947 · Brazilian novelist & lyricist

2 quotes

5 quotes wrongly credited to them

Zig Ziglar

1926–2012 · American salesman & motivational author

1 quote

5 quotes wrongly credited to them

Audrey Hepburn

1929–1993 · actress & humanitarian · a top magnet for feel-good fake quotes

5 quotes

4 quotes wrongly credited to them

Kahlil Gibran

1883–1931 · Lebanese-American poet, author of The Prophet

5 quotes

4 quotes wrongly credited to them

Ernest Hemingway

1899–1961 · American novelist, short-story writer & journalist

4 quotes

4 quotes wrongly credited to them

Muhammad Ali

1942–2016 · World heavyweight champion, activist and humanitarian

4 quotes

4 quotes wrongly credited to them

George Orwell

1903–1950 · English novelist, essayist & journalist

3 quotes

4 quotes wrongly credited to them

A. A. Milne

1882–1956 · English playwright, novelist & creator of Winnie-the-Pooh

2 quotes

4 quotes wrongly credited to them

Fyodor Dostoevsky

1821–1881 · Russian novelist & philosopher

2 quotes

4 quotes wrongly credited to them

Seneca

c. 4 BC – AD 65 · Roman Stoic philosopher, tutor to Nero

2 quotes

4 quotes wrongly credited to them

Steve Jobs

1955–2011 · co-founder & CEO, Apple

2 quotes

4 quotes wrongly credited to them

Kurt Vonnegut

1922–2007 · American novelist & satirist

1 quote

4 quotes wrongly credited to them

Nikola Tesla

1856–1943 · Serbian-American inventor & electrical engineer

5 quotes

3 quotes wrongly credited to them

Theodore Roosevelt

1858–1919 · 26th U.S. President · the quote is falsely attributed to him

5 quotes

3 quotes wrongly credited to them

Nelson Mandela

1918–2013 · Anti-apartheid leader & first democratically elected President of South Africa

4 quotes

3 quotes wrongly credited to them

Oscar Wilde

1854–1900 · Irish poet, playwright & wit

4 quotes

3 quotes wrongly credited to them

Walt Disney

1901–1966 · American animator, film producer & co-founder of The Walt Disney Company

4 quotes

3 quotes wrongly credited to them

Maya Angelou

1928–2014 · American memoirist, poet & civil-rights activist

3 quotes

3 quotes wrongly credited to them

Vincent van Gogh

1853–1890 · Dutch Post-Impressionist painter

3 quotes

3 quotes wrongly credited to them

Bruce Lee

1940–1973 · Martial artist, actor & philosopher

1 quote

3 quotes wrongly credited to them

Carl Jung

1875–1961 · Swiss psychiatrist & founder of analytical psychology

1 quote

3 quotes wrongly credited to them

Peter Drucker

1909–2005 · Management theorist & writer

1 quote

3 quotes wrongly credited to them

Mother Teresa

1910–1997 · Roman Catholic nun · founder of the Missionaries of Charity

3 quotes

2 quotes wrongly credited to them

Coco Chanel

1883–1971 · French couturier · founder of the House of Chanel

2 quotes

2 quotes wrongly credited to them

Pablo Picasso

1881–1973 · Spanish painter, sculptor & co-founder of Cubism

2 quotes

2 quotes wrongly credited to them

Eleanor Roosevelt

1884–1962 · First Lady, diplomat & human-rights advocate

1 quote

2 quotes wrongly credited to them

Wayne Dyer

1940–2015 · American self-help author & motivational speaker

1 quote

2 quotes wrongly credited to them

Anaïs Nin

1903–1977 · French-born American diarist, essayist & novelist

4 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Blaise Pascal

1623–1662 · French mathematician, physicist and religious philosopher

4 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Adam Smith

1723–1790 · Scottish moral philosopher & political economist

3 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Bertrand Russell

1872–1970 · British philosopher, logician & Nobel laureate

3 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Christian D. Larson

1874–1954 · American New Thought writer & lecturer

2 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Arthur Conan Doyle

1859–1930 · British physician and writer · creator of Sherlock Holmes

1 quote

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Clara Barton

1821–1912 · Civil War nurse & founder of the American Red Cross

1 quote

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Jim Lovell

1928–2025 · NASA astronaut; commander of Apollo 13

1 quote

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Seneca the Younger

c. 4 BC – AD 65 · Roman Stoic philosopher, dramatist & statesman

8 quotes

Will Durant

1885–1981 · American historian & philosopher

7 quotes

Barack Obama

Born 1961 · 44th President of the United States (2009–2017)

5 quotes

Booker T. Washington

1856–1915 · Educator, orator & founder of Tuskegee Institute

5 quotes

Marcus Tullius Cicero

106–43 BCE · Roman statesman, orator & philosopher

5 quotes

Niccolò Machiavelli

1469–1527 · Florentine political philosopher and statesman

5 quotes

Emily Dickinson

1830–1886 · American poet, Amherst, Massachusetts

4 quotes

Frederick Douglass

1818–1895 · American abolitionist, orator, writer & statesman

4 quotes

G. K. Chesterton

1874–1936 · English essayist, novelist & Christian apologist

4 quotes

Helen Keller

1880–1968 · American author, disability-rights advocate & lecturer

4 quotes

Heraclitus

c. 540 – c. 480 BC · Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher of Ephesus

4 quotes

John Donne

1572–1631 · English metaphysical poet & cleric, Dean of St Paul's Cathedral

4 quotes

Plutarch

c. 46 – after 119 AD · Greek biographer, essayist & Delphic priest

4 quotes

René Descartes

1596–1650 · French philosopher, mathematician & founder of modern rationalism

4 quotes

Samuel Johnson

1709–1784 · English author, lexicographer & critic

4 quotes

T. S. Eliot

1888–1965 · Poet & critic · The Sacred Wood (1920)

4 quotes

Thomas Paine

1737–1809 · English-born American political philosopher & pamphleteer

4 quotes

Zora Neale Hurston

1891–1960 · American author, anthropologist & folklorist of the Harlem Renaissance

4 quotes

Aesop

c. 620–564 BCE · semi-legendary Greek fabulist

3 quotes

Alexander Pope

1688–1744 · English poet, satirist & translator

3 quotes

Anne Frank

1929–1945 · German-born diarist & Holocaust victim

3 quotes

Bill Clinton

b. 1946 · 42nd U.S. President, 1993–2001

3 quotes

Charlotte Brontë

1816–1855 · English novelist

3 quotes

D.H. Lawrence

1885–1930 · English novelist, poet & essayist

3 quotes

Dante Alighieri

1265–1321 · Florentine poet, author of the Divine Comedy

3 quotes

David Hume

1711–1776 · Scottish Enlightenment philosopher, historian & essayist

3 quotes

Desiderius Erasmus

c. 1466–1536 · Dutch Renaissance humanist & scholar

3 quotes

Edgar Allan Poe

1809-1849 · American writer, poet & literary critic

3 quotes

Edith Wharton

1862–1937 · American novelist & short-story writer

3 quotes

Epictetus

c. 50 – c. 135 AD · Greek Stoic philosopher, born enslaved

3 quotes

Epicurus

341–270 BC · Greek philosopher, founder of Epicureanism

3 quotes

F. Scott Fitzgerald

1896–1940 · American novelist & short-story writer

3 quotes

Frank Sinatra

1915–1998 · American singer & actor · Hoboken, New Jersey

3 quotes

Geoffrey Chaucer

c. 1343–1400 · English poet, author of The Canterbury Tales

3 quotes

Gertrude Stein

1874–1946 · American modernist writer, poet & art collector

3 quotes

H.G. Wells

1866–1946 · English novelist, historian & futurist — “father of science fiction”

3 quotes

Horace

65–8 BC · Roman lyric poet & satirist

3 quotes

James Joyce

1882–1941 · Irish novelist & poet

3 quotes

Jane Austen

1775 – 1817 · English novelist

3 quotes

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

1712–1778 · Genevan-born Enlightenment philosopher & writer

3 quotes

Jean-Paul Sartre

1905–1980 · French existentialist philosopher, playwright & novelist

3 quotes

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

1749–1832 · German poet, novelist & statesman

3 quotes

John Muir

1838–1914 · Scottish-American naturalist, writer & conservationist

3 quotes

Jonathan Swift

1667–1745 · Anglo-Irish satirist, cleric & poet

3 quotes

Julius Caesar

100–44 BC · Roman general, statesman & dictator

3 quotes

Leo Tolstoy

1828–1910 · Russian novelist & moral philosopher

3 quotes

Louisa May Alcott

1832–1888 · American novelist, author of Little Women

3 quotes

Ludwig Wittgenstein

1889–1951 · Austrian-British philosopher of logic & language

3 quotes

Malcolm X

1925–1965 · U.S. civil-rights leader & Muslim minister

3 quotes

Margaret Mitchell

1900–1949 · Atlanta journalist & novelist · Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 1937

3 quotes

Marie Curie

1867–1934 · Physicist and chemist; two-time Nobel laureate

3 quotes

Mary Shelley

1797–1851 · English novelist, essayist & editor

3 quotes

Michel de Montaigne

1533–1592 · French Renaissance philosopher & inventor of the personal essay

3 quotes

Patrick Henry

1736–1799 · Founding Father, orator & Governor of Virginia

3 quotes

Paul the Apostle

c. 5 – c. 64/67 AD · Apostle of Jesus Christ & missionary of the early church

3 quotes

Robert Frost

1874–1963 · American poet, four-time Pulitzer Prize winner

3 quotes

Rosa Parks

1913–2005 · American civil rights activist, "Mother of the Civil Rights Movement"

3 quotes

Simone de Beauvoir

1908–1986 · French existentialist philosopher, writer & feminist

3 quotes

Squire Bill Widener

fl. early 1900s · farmer, Widener's Valley, Virginia

3 quotes

Susan B. Anthony

1820–1906 · American suffragist & social reformer

3 quotes

Virgil

70–19 BC · Roman poet, author of the Aeneid

3 quotes

William James

1842–1910 · American philosopher & psychologist, a founder of pragmatism

3 quotes

Alan Kay

b. 1940 · American computer scientist · Xerox PARC, Smalltalk & the personal computer · 2003 Turing Award

2 quotes

Archimedes

c. 287 – c. 212 BC · Greek mathematician, physicist & engineer of Syracuse

2 quotes

Christopher Reeve

1952–2004 · American actor, director & spinal-cord-injury advocate

2 quotes

Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel)

1904–1991 · American children's author, poet & cartoonist

2 quotes

Edward Bulwer-Lytton

1803–1873 · English novelist, playwright & politician

2 quotes

Elbert Hubbard

1856–1915 · American writer, publisher & founder of the Roycroft community

2 quotes

Emo Philips

b. 1956 · American stand-up comedian

2 quotes

Francis Bacon

1561–1626 · English philosopher, statesman & father of the scientific method

2 quotes

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1882–1945 · 32nd President of the United States

2 quotes

G. Stanley Hall

1844–1924 · American psychologist · founder of the American Psychological Association

2 quotes

George W. Bush

Born 6 July 1946 · 43rd President of the United States (2001–2009)

2 quotes

Herbert Kretzmer

1925–2020 · South African-born British journalist, songwriter & lyricist

2 quotes

J. M. Barrie

1860–1937 · Scottish novelist & playwright, creator of Peter Pan

2 quotes

James A. Garfield

1831–1881 · 20th U.S. President, Union general & Ohio congressman

2 quotes

James R. Sherman

American self-help author · earliest documented form of the saying, 1982

2 quotes

John Keats

1795–1821 · English Romantic poet

2 quotes

John Lennon

1940–1980 · English singer-songwriter, co-founder of the Beatles, peace activist

2 quotes

John Milton

1608–1674 · English poet & polemicist

2 quotes

John Stuart Mill

1806–1873 · English philosopher, political economist & Member of Parliament

2 quotes

Joseph Addison

1672–1719 · English essayist & co-founder of The Spectator

2 quotes

Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw)

1818–1885 · American humorist & lecturer

2 quotes

Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein & Howard Koch

Credited screenwriters · Casablanca (1942) · Warner Bros.

2 quotes

Kent M. Keith

b. 1949 · American author & speaker · wrote the “Paradoxical Commandments” in 1968

2 quotes

Lao Tzu (Laozi)

fl. 6th century BC (traditional) · Chinese sage · reputed author of the Tao Te Ching

2 quotes

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

b. 1938 · American historian · Harvard University · Pulitzer Prize winner

2 quotes

Leon C. Megginson

1921–2010 · American management professor, Louisiana State University

2 quotes

Mae West

1893–1980 · American actress, playwright and vaudeville-bred wit

2 quotes

Martin Luther

1483–1546 · German theologian & leader of the Protestant Reformation

2 quotes

Mary Schmich

b. 1953 · Chicago Tribune columnist

2 quotes

Milton Berle

1908–2002 · American comedian, “Mr. Television”

2 quotes

Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson & Edgar Allan Woolf

Credited screenwriters · The Wizard of Oz (MGM, 1939)

2 quotes

Rabindranath Tagore

1861–1941 · Bengali poet, essayist & composer; 1913 Nobel laureate in Literature

2 quotes

Robert F. Kennedy

1925–1968 · U.S. senator, former attorney general

2 quotes

Robert G. Ingersoll

1833–1899 · American orator, lawyer & freethinker (‘The Great Agnostic’)

2 quotes

Ted Tally

b. 9 April 1952 · American playwright and screenwriter

2 quotes

Thomas Aquinas

c. 1225–1274 · Italian Dominican friar, theologian & philosopher · Doctor of the Church

2 quotes

Thomas Carlyle

1795–1881 · Scottish essayist, historian & social critic

2 quotes

Thomas Fuller

1654–1734 · English physician & adage collector

2 quotes

Virginia Woolf

1882–1941 · English novelist & essayist

2 quotes

Walter L. Sheldon

1858–1907 · American Ethical Culture lecturer & founder of the Ethical Society of St. Louis

2 quotes

William Congreve

1670–1729 · English Restoration dramatist & poet

2 quotes

William Ernest Henley

1849–1903 · English poet, critic & editor

2 quotes

Xunzi (Xun Kuang)

c. 310 – c. 235 BCE · Chinese Confucian philosopher

2 quotes

@debihope

Twitter user · display name Notorious d.e.b. · posted 24 January 2010

1 quote

“Father Strickland” (earliest documented)

19th-century English Jesuit priest · earliest recorded 1863

1 quote

“Lady Hope” (Elizabeth Reid Cotton)

1842–1922 · British evangelist & temperance writer

1 quote

‘We Shall Overcome’ (the anthem)

Gospel- & labor-rooted protest song · anthem of the U.S. civil-rights movement

1 quote

A. J. Muste

1885–1967 · American pacifist minister & labor activist

1 quote

Aaron Sorkin

b. 1961 · American screenwriter & playwright

1 quote

Abba Eban

1915–2002 · Israeli diplomat, Foreign Minister & orator

1 quote

Ada Lovelace

1815–1852 · English mathematician · Charles Babbage’s collaborator

1 quote

Agatha Christie

1890–1976 · English crime novelist & playwright

1 quote

Aileen Miga & Janice Hughes

Authors of Inspired Wealth: Financial Leadership for the 21st Century (2004)

1 quote

Aimee Lehto Schewe

Advertising copywriter & creative director · wrote the adidas “Impossible is Nothing” manifesto, 2004

1 quote

Alan Watts

1915–1973 · British-American philosopher & interpreter of Zen for the West

1 quote

Albert Camus

1913–1960 · French-Algerian novelist, essayist & playwright; Nobel Prize in Literature, 1957

1 quote

Alfred Henry Lewis

1855–1914 · American journalist and novelist

1 quote

Alfred Hitchcock

1899–1980 · English film director, the “Master of Suspense”

1 quote

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

1809–1892 · English Poet Laureate

1 quote

Algernon Sidney

1623–1683 · English politician & political theorist; author of Discourses Concerning Government

1 quote

Alice Walker

b. 9 February 1944 · American novelist, poet & activist; author of The Color Purple

1 quote

Allen Saunders

1899–1986 · American cartoonist & writer — Mary Worth, Steve Roper, Kerry Drake

1 quote

Amelia Earhart

1897–1937 · American aviation pioneer & author

1 quote

Amos

8th century BC · Hebrew prophet & shepherd of Tekoa

1 quote

An anonymous proverb

Full four-part English version in print by 1885 · variously called an Arabic, Persian & Chinese proverb

1 quote

André Gide

1869–1951 · French novelist, critic and diarist · Nobel Prize in Literature, 1947

1 quote

Anita Merina

National Education Association writer · author of the 1997 Read Across America reading verse

1 quote

Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie

1837–1919 · English novelist & essayist, eldest daughter of W. M. Thackeray

1 quote

Anne Lamott

b. 1954 · American novelist & essayist

1 quote

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

1900–1944 · French aviator, airmail pioneer & writer

1 quote

Apollon Maykov

1821–1897 · Russian lyric poet

1 quote

Arleen Lorrance

American educator & writer · co-founder of The Love Project

1 quote

Arrigo Boito

1842–1918 · Italian librettist, composer & poet — wrote the libretti for Verdi's Otello and Falstaff

1 quote

Arthur G. Lewis

fl. 1911 · American columnist & railroad passenger agent

1 quote

Arthur Schopenhauer

1788–1860 · German philosopher of will and pessimism

1 quote

Atwood H. Townsend

born 1897 · New York University English professor & editor of Good Reading

1 quote

Audre Lorde

1934–1992 · American poet, essayist & civil rights activist

1 quote

Babe Ruth

1895–1948 · American baseball player, Boston Red Sox & New York Yankees

1 quote

Barry Commoner

1917–2012 · American biologist, ecologist & environmental activist

1 quote

Benjamin Hoff

b. 1946 · American author of The Tao of Pooh (1982)

1 quote

Bernard M. Baruch

1870–1965 · American financier & adviser to U.S. presidents

1 quote

Berthold Auerbach

1812–1882 · German novelist & poet, author of Black Forest Village Stories

1 quote

Bessie Anderson Stanley

1879–1952 · American essayist · Lincoln, Kansas

1 quote

Bette Midler

b. 1945 · American singer, actress & comedian

1 quote

Bill Bullard

American educator · former Dean of Faculty, San Francisco University High School

1 quote

Billie Holiday

1915–1959 · American jazz singer, born Eleanora Fagan

1 quote

Billie Jean King

b. 1943 · 39-time Grand Slam champion, equality advocate

1 quote

Buddhaghosa

fl. 5th century CE · Theravada Buddhist scholar-monk · author of the Visuddhimagga

1 quote

C. Archie Danielson

Earliest named source of the modern wording · Reader's Digest Quotable Quotes, 1997

1 quote

C. E. M. Joad

1891–1953 · English philosopher & BBC broadcaster

1 quote

C. S. Wheatley

fl. 1926 · outdoor-sports writer, Hunter-Trader-Trapper magazine

1 quote

Carl W. Buehner

1898–1974 · Latter-day Saint leader & Salt Lake City businessman

1 quote

Cesar Chavez

1927–1993 · American labor leader & co-founder of the United Farm Workers

1 quote

Chabrias

died 357 BC · Athenian general · saying preserved by Plutarch (c. 46–120 AD)

1 quote

Charles de Gaulle

1890–1970 · French general, leader of Free France & President of the Fifth Republic

1 quote

Charles Dickens

1812–1870 · English novelist & social critic

1 quote

Charles Edward Montague

1867–1928 · English journalist & essayist · Manchester Guardian

1 quote

Charles F. Brannan

1903–1992 · U.S. Secretary of Agriculture

1 quote

Charles Fleischer

b. 1950 · American stand-up comedian, actor & voice of Roger Rabbit

1 quote

Charles Marshall

American author, motivational speaker & comedian

1 quote

Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord

1754–1838 · French diplomat & foreign minister under Napoleon

1 quote

Charlie Chaplin

1889–1977 · English actor, filmmaker & composer

1 quote

Chinua Achebe

1930–2013 · Nigerian novelist, poet & literary critic

1 quote

Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely and Michael Petroni

Screenwriters · The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010)

1 quote

Clara Bow

1905–1965 · Silent-film star & Hollywood's original "It Girl"

1 quote

Coleman Cox

Early-20th-century American epigrammatist and businessman, San Francisco

1 quote

Confucius (Kong Qiu)

551–479 BC · Chinese teacher, editor & philosopher of the Spring and Autumn period

1 quote

Cornelia Funke

born 1958 · German author of the Inkheart (Tintenwelt) fantasy trilogy

1 quote

Cyrus Stuart Ching

1876–1967 · U.S. labor mediator · first head of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service

1 quote

Dale Carnegie

1888–1955 · American writer & lecturer, author of How to Win Friends and Influence People

1 quote

Dan Millman

born 1946 · American author, lecturer & former world trampoline champion

1 quote

Darryl Anka

b. 1951, Ottawa · American–Canadian channeler & visual-effects artist

1 quote

David Ben-Gurion

1886–1973 · Zionist statesman & first Prime Minister of Israel

1 quote

David Friedrich Strauss

1808–1874 · German Protestant theologian & biblical scholar

1 quote

David Hare

b. 5 June 1947 · English playwright and screenwriter

1 quote

David Viscott

1938–1996 · American psychiatrist, author & radio host

1 quote

David W. Orr

b. 1944 · American environmentalist & educator · Oberlin College

1 quote

Desmond Tutu

1931–2021 · South African archbishop, anti-apartheid leader & Nobel Peace laureate

1 quote

Dmitri Merezhkovsky

1865–1941 · Russian symbolist novelist, poet & nine-time Nobel nominee

1 quote

Dolly Parton

b. 19 January 1946 · American singer-songwriter, author & philanthropist

1 quote

Don B. Kates Jr.

American criminologist & gun-rights constitutional lawyer · d. 2016

1 quote

Dr. John Trainer

Coined the line in 2012 · credited originator per C.S. Lewis quote researchers

1 quote

Drew “Bundini” Brown

1928–1987 · Muhammad Ali’s cornerman, motivator & wordsmith

1 quote

Dylan Thomas

1914–1953 · Welsh poet and writer

1 quote

E. E. Cummings

1894–1962 · American modernist poet

1 quote

Ed Greenwood

b. 1959 · Canadian fantasy author, creator of the Forgotten Realms

1 quote

Ed Wynn

1886–1966 · American comedian & actor

1 quote

Eden Phillpotts

1862–1960 · English novelist, poet & playwright

1 quote

Edgar A. Guest

1881–1959 · British-born American newspaper poet, "the People's Poet"

1 quote

Edmund Burke

1729–1797 · Anglo-Irish statesman & political philosopher

1 quote

Edward Everett Hale

1822–1909 · author, historian & Unitarian clergyman

1 quote

Edward Gibbon

1737–1794 · English historian · author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

1 quote

Edwin Hubbell Chapin

1814–1880 · American Universalist preacher & orator

1 quote

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

1806–1861 · English Victorian poet

1 quote

Ella Fitzgerald

1917–1996 · American jazz singer, the "First Lady of Song"

1 quote

Émile Zola

1840–1902 · French novelist, leader of literary Naturalism

1 quote

Emily Brontë

1818–1848 · English poet and novelist

1 quote

Emmeline Pankhurst

1858–1928 · British suffragette leader · founder of the Women's Social and Political Union

1 quote

Eric Roth

b. 1945 · American screenwriter

1 quote

Ernest Bevin

1881–1951 · British trade unionist, wartime Minister of Labour & post-war Foreign Secretary

1 quote

Evelyn Beatrice Hall

1868–1956 · English biographer · pen name ‘S. G. Tallentyre’

1 quote

Fernando Sabino

1923–2004 · Brazilian novelist & journalist · credited the line to his father, Domingos

1 quote

Florence Nightingale

1820–1910 · English social reformer, statistician & founder of modern nursing

1 quote

Foster C. McClellan

20th-century American inspirational writer · dates uncertain

1 quote

Frank Outlaw

d. 1977 · American grocer, president of the Bi-Lo supermarket chain

1 quote

Franz Kafka

1883–1924 · Prague-born, German-language novelist & story writer

1 quote

Fred R. Barnard

fl. 1920s · American advertising manager, Street Railways Advertising Co.

1 quote

Frida Kahlo

1907–1954 · Mexican painter & diarist

1 quote

G. F. Allen

fl. 1959 · British Buddhist anthologist

1 quote

Gaylord Parkinson

California Republican Party state chairman · issued the GOP’s “Eleventh Commandment,” 25 September 1965

1 quote

Gene L. Coon

1924–1973 · Star Trek screenwriter, story editor & showrunner

1 quote

George Eliot

1819–1880 · English novelist (pen name of Mary Ann Evans)

1 quote

George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans)

1819–1880 · English novelist, poet, journalist & translator

1 quote

George H.W. Bush

1924–2018 · 41st President of the United States (1989–1993)

1 quote

George MacDonald

1824–1905 · Scottish novelist, poet & Congregational minister

1 quote

George Santayana

1863–1952 · Spanish-born American philosopher, essayist & poet

1 quote

Georges Duhamel

1884–1966 · French novelist, poet & army surgeon; Prix Goncourt 1918; Académie française

1 quote

Georgia O’Keeffe

1887–1986 · American modernist painter

1 quote

Gerald R. Ford

1913–2006 · 38th President of the United States

1 quote

Gloria Steinem

b. 1934 · American feminist, journalist & activist

1 quote

Grace Hopper

1906–1992 · U.S. Navy Rear Admiral & computer-science pioneer

1 quote

H. Jackson Brown Jr.

1940–2021 · American author, best known for Life's Little Instruction Book

1 quote

H.L. Mencken

1880–1956 · American journalist, essayist & satirist

1 quote

Hannah Arendt

1906–1975 · German-born American political theorist

1 quote

Harriet Tubman

c. 1822–1913 · Abolitionist & Underground Railroad conductor

1 quote

Harrington Emerson

1853–1931 · American efficiency engineer & management consultant

1 quote

Harris Weinstock

1854–1922 · California merchant & industrial-relations reformer

1 quote

Harry Julian Fink, R. M. Fink & Dean Riesner

Credited screenwriters · Dirty Harry (1971), Warner Bros. / The Malpaso Company

1 quote

Henry James

1843–1916 · American-born novelist & man of letters

1 quote

Henry Stanley Haskins

1875–1957 · Wall Street trader & aphorist

1 quote

Henry Thomas Buckle

1821–1862 · English historian & chess master

1 quote

Henry van Dyke

1852–1933 · American clergyman, poet & diplomat

1 quote

Henry Whitney Bellows

1814–1882 · American Unitarian minister & author

1 quote

Herbert Wright

1946–2005 · Television writer and producer · “Father of the Ferengi”

1 quote

Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)

65–8 BC · Roman lyric poet under Augustus

1 quote

Howard Zinn

1922–2010 · American historian & antiwar activist · author of A People's History of the United States

1 quote

Indira Gandhi

1917–1984 · Prime Minister of India

1 quote

Isaac Newton

1642–1727 · English physicist & mathematician

1 quote

J. J. Hahn

fl. 1995 · University of Minnesota · alt.atheism Usenet poster

1 quote

J. Richard Lessor

20th century · American social worker, author & motivational speaker

1 quote

J.B.S. Haldane

1892–1964 · British-Indian geneticist & evolutionary biologist

1 quote

J.R.R. Tolkien

1892–1973 · English writer, poet & philologist; author of The Lord of the Rings

1 quote

Jack Dempsey

1895–1983 · American world heavyweight boxing champion, 1919–1926

1 quote

Jacob & Wilhelm Grimm

Jacob 1785–1863 · Wilhelm 1786–1859 · German philologists & folklorists

1 quote

Jacob M. Braude

1896–1970 · compiler of speakers' reference books

1 quote

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

1929–1994 · U.S. First Lady & book editor

1 quote

James Baldwin

1924–1987 · American novelist, essayist & civil-rights witness

1 quote

James Clavell

1921–1994 · British-American novelist & screenwriter

1 quote

James J. Lachard (Jim Brown)

20th-century English writer · pen name of Jim Brown · author of “An Interview with God”

1 quote

James Quin

1693–1766 · English stage actor · the ancestral coldest-winter quip

1 quote

Jane Goodall

1934–2025 · British primatologist & conservationist

1 quote

Jean (John) Chardin

1643–1713 · French-British traveller & jeweller who chronicled Persia

1 quote

Jean Sibelius

1865–1957 · Finnish composer

1 quote

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

1796–1875 · French landscape painter, leading figure of the Barbizon school

1 quote

Jean-Pierre Melville

1917–1973 · French film director & screenwriter

1 quote

Jerome K. Jerome

1859–1927 · English humorist & novelist

1 quote

Jesse Jackson

b. 1941 · American civil-rights leader, Baptist minister & orator

1 quote

Jessie Potter

1926–2010 · American educator on family relationships & human sexuality

1 quote

Jianzhi Sengcan

d. 606 CE · Third Patriarch of Chan (Zen) Buddhism

1 quote

Jiao Hong (焦竑)

1540–1620 · Ming-dynasty Chinese scholar, philosopher & historian

1 quote

Jim Rohn

1930–2009 · American entrepreneur & motivational speaker

1 quote

Joan Walsh Anglund

1926–2021 · American children's-book author & poet

1 quote

Joe E. Lewis

1902–1971 · American nightclub comedian & singer

1 quote

Joel Barlow

1754–1812 · American poet & diplomat; drafted the English Treaty of Tripoli

1 quote

Johann Sebastian Bach

1685–1750 · German composer & organist of the Baroque era

1 quote

John Anster

1793–1867 · Irish poet & Regius Professor of Civil Law, Trinity College Dublin

1 quote

John Archibald Wheeler

1911–2008 · American theoretical physicist

1 quote

John Basil Barnhill

American writer & anti-socialist debater · early 20th century

1 quote

John Burroughs

1837–1921 · American naturalist & nature essayist

1 quote

John H. Secondari

1919–1975 · American author, journalist & TV documentary producer

1 quote

John Heider

1936–2010 · American clinical psychologist & Human Potential Movement figure

1 quote

John Henry Newman

1801–1890 · English theologian, poet & cardinal

1 quote

John L. O’Sullivan & the Democratic Review

United States Magazine and Democratic Review, est. 1837 · ed. John L. O’Sullivan (1813–1895)

1 quote

John Lewis

1940–2020 · U.S. congressman & civil rights leader

1 quote

John Locke

1632–1704 · English philosopher, founder of empiricism

1 quote

John Philpot Curran

1750–1817 · Irish orator, lawyer & statesman

1 quote

John W. Gardner

1912–2002 · U.S. public official & reformer; author of Self-Renewal

1 quote

John Watson (“Ian Maclaren”)

1850–1907 · Scottish Free Church minister & novelist (pen name Ian Maclaren)

1 quote

John Wesley

1703–1791 · English cleric & founder of Methodism

1 quote

Jorge Luis Borges

1899–1986 · Argentine writer, poet & essayist

1 quote

Joseph D. Eggleston Jr.

1867–1953 · educator, Virginia school superintendent, college president

1 quote

Joseph Stinson

American screenwriter · credited screenplay, Sudden Impact (1983)

1 quote

Katharine Hepburn

1907–2003 · American actress, four-time Academy Award winner

1 quote

Ken Purdy

1913–1972 · American automotive writer and editor

1 quote

Kenneth B. Elliott

American sales executive · Vice-President in Charge of Sales, The Studebaker Corporation (1940s)

1 quote

Kenneth John Freeman

1882–1906 · Cambridge classicist · author of Schools of Hellas (1907)

1 quote

Kevin Alfred Strom

b. 1956 · American white nationalist broadcaster · founded National Vanguard, 2005

1 quote

King James Bible (Book of Proverbs)

Proverbs 17:17 · King James Version, first published 1611

1 quote

Kinky Friedman

1944–2024 · American singer-songwriter, humorist & mystery novelist

1 quote

Langston Hughes

1901–1967 · American poet, novelist & leading voice of the Harlem Renaissance

1 quote

Laozi (Lao Tzu)

fl. 6th c. BC (traditional) · Chinese sage, reputed author of the Tao Te Ching

1 quote

Leigh Brackett & Lawrence Kasdan

Screenwriters, The Empire Strikes Back (1980) · story by George Lucas

1 quote

Leo Durocher

1905–1991 · Hall of Fame MLB manager & shortstop, "Leo the Lip"

1 quote

Leo Rosten

1908–1997 · American humorist, lexicographer & political scientist

1 quote

Les Brown

b. 1945 · American motivational speaker & author

1 quote

Lloyd Shearer

1916–2001 · American journalist & celebrity columnist

1 quote

Lord Acton (John Dalberg-Acton)

1834–1902 · English historian, moralist & Liberal politician

1 quote

Louis Armstrong

1901–1971 · American jazz trumpeter & vocalist · New Orleans

1 quote

Louis Pasteur

1822–1895 · French chemist & microbiologist

1 quote

Louis XVIII of France

1755–1824 · King of France, 1814–1824 · Bourbon Restoration

1 quote

Louis-Charles Jourdan

1810–1881 · French journalist for Le Siècle

1 quote

Lowell L. Bennion

1908–1996 · educator & sociologist

1 quote

Ludwig van Beethoven

1770–1827 · German composer & pianist

1 quote

Malala Yousafzai

b. 1997 · Pakistani education activist · youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize laureate

1 quote

Malcolm Forbes

1919–1990 · American magazine publisher (Forbes) — earliest credited source of the modern saying

1 quote

Marcus Bach

1901–1995 · American religious scholar, professor & author

1 quote

Marianne Williamson

Born 1952 · American author, spiritual teacher & lecturer

1 quote

Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola

Puzo 1920–1999 · Coppola b. 1939 · screenwriters, The Godfather Part II (1974)

1 quote

Mark Protosevich & Akiva Goldsman

Screenwriters of I Am Legend (2007) · dir. Francis Lawrence · Warner Bros.

1 quote

Marshall Field

1834–1906 · Chicago department-store magnate; mentor to Harry Gordon Selfridge

1 quote

Mary Kay Ash

1918–2001 · American businesswoman · Founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics

1 quote

Mary Lou Kownacki, OSB

1941–2023 · Benedictine sister, poet & peace activist

1 quote

Mary Oliver

1935–2019 · American poet, Pulitzer Prize winner

1 quote

Mary Wollstonecraft

1759–1797 · English writer, philosopher & pioneering feminist

1 quote

Mason Locke Weems

1759–1825 · American clergyman, book agent, and Washington biographer

1 quote

Maurice Switzer

b. 1870 · American humorist & advertising writer

1 quote

Menachem Mendel of Kotzk

1787–1859 · Hasidic rabbi & Torah master of Kotzk, Poland

1 quote

Meryl Streep

b. 1949 · American actress

1 quote

Michael Faraday

1791–1867 · English physicist & chemist

1 quote

Michael Jordan

b. 1963 · Hall-of-Fame basketball player · Chicago Bulls

1 quote

Michelle Obama

b. 1964 · Lawyer, author & First Lady of the United States (2009–2017)

1 quote

Mignon McLaughlin

1913–1983 · American journalist, magazine editor and aphorist

1 quote

Mikhail Bakunin

1814–1876 · Russian revolutionary anarchist & political philosopher

1 quote

Nathaniel Hawthorne

1804–1864 · American novelist & short-story writer

1 quote

Neil Armstrong

1930–2012 · Apollo 11 commander & first human on the Moon

1 quote

Neil Gaiman

born 1960 · English author

1 quote

Nicholas Klein

1884–1951 · American labor lawyer & union organizer

1 quote

Nina Simone

1933–2003 · Singer, pianist & civil-rights activist

1 quote

Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf

Langley 1911–1980 · Ryerson 1892–1965 · Woolf 1881–1943 · credited screenwriters, The Wizard of Oz (1939)

1 quote

Norman Spinrad

b. 1940 · American science-fiction novelist, essayist & Star Trek teleplay writer

1 quote

Olin Miller

American humorist & newspaper columnist · active 1930s–1950s

1 quote

Oliver Goldsmith

1728–1774 · Anglo-Irish poet, playwright & novelist

1 quote

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

1809–1894 · American physician, poet & essayist · The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table

1 quote

Oprah Winfrey

Born 1954 · American talk-show host, producer & founder of O, The Oprah Magazine

1 quote

Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d’Holbach

1723–1789 · French-German Enlightenment philosopher & atheist

1 quote

Pearl S. Buck

1892–1973 · American novelist · Pulitzer Prize 1932 · Nobel Prize in Literature 1938

1 quote

Pelé

1940–2022 · Brazilian footballer · three-time World Cup winner

1 quote

Percy Colson

1873–1952 · British author and biographer

1 quote

Phillips Brooks

1835–1893 · American Episcopal clergyman & hymn-writer

1 quote

Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais

1732–1799 · French playwright & author of the Figaro comedies

1 quote

Pierre-Marc-Gaston de Lévis

1764–1830 · French duke, soldier & aphorist; Académie française

1 quote

Pliny the Elder (earliest source of the idea)

c. AD 23/24–79 · Roman naturalist & author

1 quote

Pope John Paul II

1920–2005 · Pope, 1978–2005 · born Karol Wojtyła, Poland

1 quote

Rev. Clarence H. Wilson

fl. 1927 · Pastor, Flatbush Congregational Church, Brooklyn

1 quote

Richard Lingard

c. 1598–1670 · Anglo-Irish clergyman, Dean of Lismore · wrote the 1670 pamphlet that is the line’s earliest match

1 quote

Richard Matheson

1926–2013 · American screenwriter & novelist · wrote Star Trek’s “The Enemy Within” (1966)

1 quote

Rita Mae Brown

American novelist · b. 1944 · put the line in print in 1983

1 quote

Robert Brault

b. 1938 · American aphorist & freelance writer

1 quote

Robert Bulwer-Lytton

1831–1891 · Poet ‘Owen Meredith’ · Viceroy of India

1 quote

Robert Fulghum

b. 1937 · American author & Unitarian minister

1 quote

Robert H. Schuller

1926–2015 · American televangelist, pastor & motivational author

1 quote

Robert J. Hanlon

fl. 1980 · American computer programmer, Tobyhanna Army Depot, Pennsylvania

1 quote

Robert Louis Stevenson

1850–1894 · Scottish essayist, novelist & poet

1 quote

Robert Orben

1927–2023 · American comedy writer, gag-file publisher, and director of Gerald Ford’s White House speechwriting staff

1 quote

Roger Miller

1936–1992 · American country singer-songwriter

1 quote

Rosalind Franklin

1920–1958 · chemist & X-ray crystallographer

1 quote

Roy Scheider

1932–2008 · American actor · played Chief Martin Brody in Jaws (1975)

1 quote

Rudyard Kipling

1865–1936 · English author & poet · Nobel laureate in Literature, 1907

1 quote

Rumi

1207–1273 · Persian Sufi poet & mystic

1 quote

Rumi (Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi)

1207–1273 · Persian poet, Islamic scholar & Sufi mystic

1 quote

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

1933–2020 · U.S. Supreme Court Justice & pioneering women’s-rights litigator

1 quote

Saint Ambrose

c. 339–397 AD · Bishop of Milan, Doctor of the Church

1 quote

Sally Ride

1951–2012 · Physicist & first American woman in space

1 quote

Salvador Dalí

1904–1989 · Spanish surrealist painter & writer

1 quote

Sam Levenson

1911–1980 · American humorist, teacher & TV personality

1 quote

Samuel Butler

1613–1680 · English poet & satirist

1 quote

Samuel Smiles

1812–1904 · Scottish author, reformer & pioneer of self-improvement writing

1 quote

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

1772–1834 · English Romantic poet, critic & philosopher

1 quote

Sarah T. Bushnell

American biographer · author of The Truth About Henry Ford (Reilly & Lee, 1922)

1 quote

Selwyn Duke

American writer & columnist · originated the line in 2009

1 quote

Seneca (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)

c. 4 BC – AD 65 · Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman & dramatist

1 quote

Serena Williams

b. 1981 · American tennis champion & 23-time Grand Slam singles winner

1 quote

Sharon Begley

1956–2021 · American science journalist, Newsweek

1 quote

Sharon Salzberg

b. 1952 · American meditation teacher & author

1 quote

Simone Weil

1909–1943 · French philosopher, mystic & political activist

1 quote

Sir John Lubbock (Lord Avebury)

1834–1913 · English banker, biologist, MP & popular essayist

1 quote

Sir Joshua Reynolds

1723–1792 · English portrait painter & first President of the Royal Academy

1 quote

Sojourner Truth

c. 1797–1883 · abolitionist & women's-rights orator

1 quote

Søren Kierkegaard

1813–1855 · Danish philosopher, theologian & father of existentialism

1 quote

St Edmund of Abingdon

c. 1174–1240 · Oxford teacher & Archbishop of Canterbury

1 quote

Stan Lee & Steve Ditko

Amazing Fantasy #15, 1962 · Marvel Comics creators of Spider-Man

1 quote

Stanley Weiser & Oliver Stone

Credited screenwriters · Wall Street (1987), 20th Century Fox

1 quote

Stanley Weiser and Oliver Stone

American screenwriters · shared screenplay credit on Wall Street (1987)

1 quote

Steve Meerson, Peter Krikes, Harve Bennett & Nicholas Meyer

Credited screenwriters · Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (Paramount, 1986) · credit settled by WGA arbitration

1 quote

Stewart Brand

b. 1938 · writer, editor and founder of the Whole Earth Catalog

1 quote

Sydney Smith

1771–1845 · English clergyman, essayist & co-founder of the Edinburgh Review

1 quote

Sylvia Plath

1932–1963 · American poet & novelist

1 quote

The Book of Proverbs

Book of the Hebrew Bible · wisdom literature traditionally ascribed to King Solomon

1 quote

The Buddha (Siddhārtha Gautama)

fl. c. 5th century BCE · founder of Buddhism

1 quote

The Delphic maxims (Seven Sages of Greece)

Inscribed at Delphi · attested by the 5th century BC · ascribed to the Seven Sages

1 quote

The Prophet Amos

8th century BC · Hebrew prophet of Israel · Book of Amos, KJV 1611

1 quote

Theodore Levitt

1925–2006 · Harvard Business School economist who coined ‘marketing myopia’

1 quote

Theodore Parker

1810–1860 · American Unitarian minister & abolitionist

1 quote

Thomas Adams

1583–1652 · English clergyman and preacher

1 quote

Thomas Byrom

d. 1991 · English literary scholar & verse translator of the Dhammapada

1 quote

Thomas Campbell

1777–1844 · Scottish poet

1 quote

Thomas Henry Huxley

1825–1895 · English biologist, comparative anatomist & essayist

1 quote

Tom Fitzgerald

Walt Disney Imagineer · 40+ years at WED/Imagineering · writer of Epcot's Horizons (1983)

1 quote

Tom Peters

b. 1942 · American management writer & co-author of In Search of Excellence

1 quote

Toni Morrison

1931–2019 · American novelist, editor, and Nobel laureate

1 quote

Ursula K. Le Guin

1929–2018 · American novelist of science fiction & fantasy

1 quote

Vegetius

Late 4th century AD · Roman military writer

1 quote

Vernon Howard

1918–1992 · American spiritual teacher & self-help author

1 quote

W. P. Kinsella

1935–2016 · Canadian novelist & short-story writer

1 quote

Wallace Rice

1859–1939 · American poet, editor & translator; designer of the Chicago flag

1 quote

Walt Whitman

1819–1892 · American poet, essayist & journalist

1 quote

Walter ‘Red’ Smith

1905–1982 · American sportswriter & Pulitzer Prize–winning columnist

1 quote

Walter J. Hickel

1919–2010 · Governor of Alaska (1966–1969, 1990–1994) & U.S. Secretary of the Interior

1 quote

Washington Irving

1783–1859 · American author, essayist & historian

1 quote

Werner Jaeger

1888–1961 · German-American classical scholar

1 quote

Wilhelm Stekel

1868–1940 · Austrian physician & psychoanalyst

1 quote

Willa Cather

1873–1947 · American novelist & Pulitzer winner

1 quote

William Arthur Ward

1921–1994 · American motivational writer & epigrammatist

1 quote

William Blake

1757–1827 · English Romantic poet, painter & printmaker

1 quote

William Broyles Jr.

b. 8 October 1944 · Screenwriter, journalist & founding editor of Texas Monthly

1 quote

William Bruce Cameron

American sociologist · author of Informal Sociology (1963)

1 quote

William Edgar Borah

1865–1940 · U.S. Senator from Idaho & famed orator

1 quote

William Elliot Griffis

1843–1928 · American orientalist & author

1 quote

William H. Whyte

1917–1999 · journalist, Fortune editor & urbanist

1 quote

William J. H. Boetcker

1873–1962 · American Presbyterian minister & motivational speaker

1 quote

William L. Watkinson

1838–1925 · English Wesleyan Methodist minister & author

1 quote

William Makepeace Thackeray

1811–1863 · English novelist & satirist

1 quote

William Nicholson

Born 1948 · English screenwriter, playwright & novelist

1 quote

William Pitt the Elder, 1st Earl of Chatham

1708–1778 · British statesman & orator, twice effective head of government

1 quote

Xun Kuang (Xunzi)

c. 310 – c. 235 BCE · Chinese Confucian philosopher of the Warring States period

1 quote

Yiddish proverb tradition

Traditional Ashkenazi Jewish saying · author unknown

1 quote

Yogi Berra

1925–2015 · Baseball Hall of Fame catcher & folk philosopher

1 quote