Every voice, traced

The authors

1082 authors & artists · 2036 quotes and 115 songs traced to a primary source — or honestly marked where none exists — with the misattributions untangled.

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Era

Mark Twain

1835–1910 · American writer, humorist and lifelong cigar smoker

28 quotes

33 quotes wrongly credited to them

Albert Einstein

1879–1955 · German-born theoretical physicist

25 quotes

29 quotes wrongly credited to them

Winston Churchill

1874–1965 · British statesman, historian and Nobel laureate in Literature

23 quotes

24 quotes wrongly credited to them

Gautama Buddha

c. 5th–4th century BCE · Indian ascetic and teacher; founder of Buddhism

9 quotes

20 quotes wrongly credited to them

Abraham Lincoln

1809–1865 · 16th President of the United States

14 quotes

17 quotes wrongly credited to them

Confucius

c. 551 – c. 479 BCE · Chinese philosopher and teacher of the Spring and Autumn period, from the state of Lu

19 quotes

16 quotes wrongly credited to them

Socrates

c. 470–399 BC · Athenian philosopher · wrote nothing himself — known through Plato and Xenophon

13 quotes

15 quotes wrongly credited to them

Aristotle

384–322 BC · Greek philosopher and the first systematic biologist

12 quotes

14 quotes wrongly credited to them

Thomas Jefferson

1743–1826 · Author of the Declaration of Independence; third U.S. president

9 quotes

14 quotes wrongly credited to them

Benjamin Franklin

1706–1790 · printer, scientist & Founding Father

17 quotes

13 quotes wrongly credited to them

Oscar Wilde

1854–1900 · Irish poet, playwright & aphorist

17 quotes

13 quotes wrongly credited to them

George Bernard Shaw

1856–1950 · Irish playwright, critic and Nobel laureate

16 quotes

13 quotes wrongly credited to them

Plato

c. 428–347 BC · Athenian philosopher, founder of the Academy

8 quotes

12 quotes wrongly credited to them

Mahatma Gandhi

1869–1948 · Indian independence leader & apostle of nonviolence

8 quotes

11 quotes wrongly credited to them

George Carlin

1937–2008 · American comedian, social critic and author

7 quotes

11 quotes wrongly credited to them

George Washington

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

7 quotes

11 quotes wrongly credited to them

Groucho Marx

1890–1977 · American comedian, Marx Brothers star & memoirist

5 quotes

11 quotes wrongly credited to them

C.S. Lewis

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

4 quotes

11 quotes wrongly credited to them

Sun Tzu

Traditionally 544–496 BC · Chinese general, strategist and philosopher · historicity uncertain

10 quotes

10 quotes wrongly credited to them

Napoleon Bonaparte

1769–1821 · Emperor of the French and military commander

9 quotes

10 quotes wrongly credited to them

Ralph Waldo Emerson

1803–1882 · American essayist, lecturer & Transcendentalist

9 quotes

10 quotes wrongly credited to them

John F. Kennedy

1917–1963 · 35th U.S. President

8 quotes

10 quotes wrongly credited to them

Yogi Berra

1925–2015 · Yankees catcher, manager & accidental aphorist

8 quotes

10 quotes wrongly credited to them

Henry Ford

1863–1947 · American industrialist, founder of the Ford Motor Company

7 quotes

10 quotes wrongly credited to them

Leonardo da Vinci

1452–1519 · Florentine polymath, painter and engineer

6 quotes

10 quotes wrongly credited to them

The Bible

The collected scriptures of Judaism and Christianity · commonly credited here in error

1 quote

10 quotes wrongly credited to them

William Shakespeare

c. 1564–1616 · English playwright, poet and actor

29 quotes

9 quotes wrongly credited to them

Friedrich Nietzsche

1844–1900 · German philosopher & classical philologist

15 quotes

9 quotes wrongly credited to them

Martin Luther King Jr.

1929–1968 · Baptist minister and leader of the American civil rights movement

13 quotes

9 quotes wrongly credited to them

Theodore Roosevelt

1858–1919 · 26th U.S. president, soldier, naturalist and prolific author

11 quotes

9 quotes wrongly credited to them

Voltaire

1694–1778 · French Enlightenment writer, satirist and philosopher

11 quotes

9 quotes wrongly credited to them

Lao Tzu

trad. 6th century BC · legendary Chinese sage, reputed author of the Tao Te Ching

9 quotes

9 quotes wrongly credited to them

Will Rogers

1879–1935 · American humorist, newspaper columnist and film star

8 quotes

9 quotes wrongly credited to them

Edmund Burke

1729–1797 · Anglo-Irish statesman, orator & political philosopher

6 quotes

9 quotes wrongly credited to them

Henry David Thoreau

1817–1862 · American essayist, poet & naturalist

18 quotes

8 quotes wrongly credited to them

Dorothy Parker

1893–1967 · American poet, critic, short-story writer and screenwriter

11 quotes

8 quotes wrongly credited to them

Hippocrates

c. 460 – c. 370 BC · Greek physician of Kos, the “Father of Medicine”

11 quotes

8 quotes wrongly credited to them

Ernest Hemingway

1899–1961 · American novelist and short-story writer

10 quotes

8 quotes wrongly credited to them

Marilyn Monroe

1926–1962 · American actress and Hollywood icon

9 quotes

8 quotes wrongly credited to them

Richard Feynman

1918–1988 · American theoretical physicist · Nobel Prize in Physics, 1965

9 quotes

8 quotes wrongly credited to them

Bill Gates

b. 1955 · Microsoft co-founder · author of The Road Ahead (1995)

8 quotes

8 quotes wrongly credited to them

Eleanor Roosevelt

1884–1962 · First Lady of the United States and UN human rights delegate

8 quotes

8 quotes wrongly credited to them

John Lennon

1940–1980 · English musician and songwriter, co-founder of the Beatles

8 quotes

8 quotes wrongly credited to them

Carl Sagan

1934–1996 · American astronomer, planetary scientist & science communicator

7 quotes

8 quotes wrongly credited to them

Charles Darwin

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

6 quotes

8 quotes wrongly credited to them

Marcus Aurelius

121–180 AD · Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher, and a character in the film

24 quotes

7 quotes wrongly credited to them

Thomas Edison

1847–1931 · American inventor & businessman

13 quotes

7 quotes wrongly credited to them

John D. Rockefeller

1839–1937 · American oil industrialist & philanthropist; founder of Standard Oil

10 quotes

7 quotes wrongly credited to them

George Orwell

1903–1950 · English novelist, essayist & critic (born Eric Arthur Blair)

9 quotes

7 quotes wrongly credited to them

Michael Jordan

b. 17 February 1963 · American basketball player, six-time NBA champion

9 quotes

7 quotes wrongly credited to them

Muhammad Ali

1942–2016 · American heavyweight champion & activist

9 quotes

7 quotes wrongly credited to them

Ronald Reagan

1911–2004 · 40th President of the United States

9 quotes

7 quotes wrongly credited to them

Pablo Picasso

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

8 quotes

7 quotes wrongly credited to them

Marcus Tullius Cicero

106–43 BC · Roman statesman, orator and philosopher

6 quotes

7 quotes wrongly credited to them

Dale Carnegie

1888–1955 · American writer & public-speaking teacher

5 quotes

7 quotes wrongly credited to them

Galileo Galilei

1564–1642 · Italian astronomer, physicist and natural philosopher

5 quotes

7 quotes wrongly credited to them

Malcolm X

1925–1965 · Black liberation leader, minister & human-rights organiser

13 quotes

6 quotes wrongly credited to them

Charles Dickens

1812–1870 · English novelist and social critic

11 quotes

6 quotes wrongly credited to them

Niccolò Machiavelli

1469–1527 · Florentine diplomat, historian & political theorist

11 quotes

6 quotes wrongly credited to them

Peter Drucker

1909–2005 · Austrian-American management consultant, educator and author

10 quotes

6 quotes wrongly credited to them

Leo Tolstoy

1828–1910 · Russian novelist and educator — author of War and Peace and of the Azbuka primer

9 quotes

6 quotes wrongly credited to them

Maya Angelou

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

9 quotes

6 quotes wrongly credited to them

Sigmund Freud

1856–1939 · Austrian neurologist & founder of psychoanalysis

9 quotes

6 quotes wrongly credited to them

Audrey Hepburn

1929–1993 · Belgian-born actress and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador

7 quotes

6 quotes wrongly credited to them

Nelson Mandela

1918–2013 · Anti-apartheid revolutionary & first President of democratic South Africa

6 quotes

6 quotes wrongly credited to them

Paulo Coelho

Born 24 August 1947 · Brazilian novelist & lyricist

5 quotes

6 quotes wrongly credited to them

Stephen Covey

1932–2012 · American educator, businessman & motivational author

5 quotes

6 quotes wrongly credited to them

Stephen Hawking

1942–2018 · British theoretical physicist & cosmologist

5 quotes

6 quotes wrongly credited to them

Dr. Seuss

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

4 quotes

6 quotes wrongly credited to them

H. L. Mencken

1880–1956 · American journalist, satirist and cultural critic

10 quotes

5 quotes wrongly credited to them

Alexis de Tocqueville

1805–1859 · French diplomat, political philosopher and historian

9 quotes

5 quotes wrongly credited to them

Dwight D. Eisenhower

1890–1969 · Allied supreme commander & 34th U.S. president

9 quotes

5 quotes wrongly credited to them

Walt Disney

1901–1966 · American animator, film producer & studio founder

8 quotes

5 quotes wrongly credited to them

Kurt Vonnegut

1922–2007 · American novelist, essayist & Dresden POW

6 quotes

5 quotes wrongly credited to them

Margaret Thatcher

1925–2013 · British Prime Minister, 1979–1990

6 quotes

5 quotes wrongly credited to them

Steve Jobs

1955–2011 · Co-founder and CEO of Apple; chairman of Pixar

6 quotes

5 quotes wrongly credited to them

John Wooden

1910–2010 · UCLA basketball coach & former English teacher

5 quotes

5 quotes wrongly credited to them

Vince Lombardi

1913–1970 · Green Bay Packers head coach, five-time NFL champion

4 quotes

5 quotes wrongly credited to them

Zig Ziglar

1926–2012 · American salesman, author & motivational speaker

4 quotes

5 quotes wrongly credited to them

Bob Marley

1945–1981 · Jamaican reggae musician & songwriter

3 quotes

5 quotes wrongly credited to them

W. B. Yeats

1865–1939 · Irish poet, dramatist and Nobel laureate (1923)

2 quotes

5 quotes wrongly credited to them

Joseph Campbell

1904–1987 · American mythologist & professor of literature, Sarah Lawrence College

11 quotes

4 quotes wrongly credited to them

Nikola Tesla

1856–1943 · Serbian-American engineer, futurist & inventor

10 quotes

4 quotes wrongly credited to them

Helen Keller

1880–1968 · American author, lecturer and disability rights advocate

9 quotes

4 quotes wrongly credited to them

Kahlil Gibran

1883–1931 · Lebanese-American poet, writer & visual artist

9 quotes

4 quotes wrongly credited to them

W. Edwards Deming

1900–1993 · American statistician and management consultant

9 quotes

4 quotes wrongly credited to them

Fyodor Dostoevsky

1821–1881 · Russian novelist & essayist

8 quotes

4 quotes wrongly credited to them

Rumi

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

8 quotes

4 quotes wrongly credited to them

Andy Warhol

1928–1987 · American Pop artist, filmmaker & author

7 quotes

4 quotes wrongly credited to them

Emma Goldman

1869–1940 · Anarchist orator, writer and editor of Mother Earth

7 quotes

4 quotes wrongly credited to them

A. A. Milne

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

5 quotes

4 quotes wrongly credited to them

Viktor Frankl

1905–1997 · Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist and founder of logotherapy

5 quotes

4 quotes wrongly credited to them

Coco Chanel

1883–1971 · French couturière, founder of the House of Chanel

10 quotes

3 quotes wrongly credited to them

Colin Powell

1937–2021 · U.S. Army general · Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1989–1993 · 65th U.S. Secretary of State, 2001–2005

10 quotes

3 quotes wrongly credited to them

Margaret Mead

1901–1978 · American cultural anthropologist and author

9 quotes

3 quotes wrongly credited to them

Warren Buffett

b. 30 August 1930 · American investor · Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway

9 quotes

3 quotes wrongly credited to them

Andrew Carnegie

1835–1919 · Scottish-American industrialist, philanthropist & peace campaigner

7 quotes

3 quotes wrongly credited to them

J. P. Morgan

1837–1913 · American financier, banker and art collector

7 quotes

3 quotes wrongly credited to them

Carl Jung

1875–1961 · Swiss psychiatrist · founder of analytical psychology

6 quotes

3 quotes wrongly credited to them

Vincent van Gogh

1853–1890 · Dutch Post-Impressionist painter & prolific letter-writer

6 quotes

3 quotes wrongly credited to them

Bruce Lee

1940–1973 · Hong Kong-American martial artist, actor & filmmaker

4 quotes

3 quotes wrongly credited to them

Desiderius Erasmus

c. 1466–1536 · Dutch Renaissance humanist & scholar

3 quotes

3 quotes wrongly credited to them

Charlie Chaplin

1889–1977 · English actor, filmmaker & composer

2 quotes

3 quotes wrongly credited to them

Babe Ruth

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

7 quotes

2 quotes wrongly credited to them

Samuel Johnson

1709–1784 · English lexicographer, critic & essayist

7 quotes

2 quotes wrongly credited to them

G. K. Chesterton

1874–1936 · English journalist, novelist & essayist

5 quotes

2 quotes wrongly credited to them

Mother Teresa

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

5 quotes

2 quotes wrongly credited to them

Robin Williams

1951–2014 · American actor and stand-up comedian

4 quotes

2 quotes wrongly credited to them

Charles Bukowski

1920–1994 · Los Angeles poet, novelist & underground columnist

3 quotes

2 quotes wrongly credited to them

Fred Rogers

1928–2003 · American television host, author and Presbyterian minister

3 quotes

2 quotes wrongly credited to them

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

1749–1832 · German poet, novelist & statesman

3 quotes

2 quotes wrongly credited to them

Bennett Cerf

1898–1971 · Random House co-founder, joke anthologist, What's My Line? panelist

2 quotes

2 quotes wrongly credited to them

Joseph Goebbels

1897–1945 · Nazi Reich Minister of Propaganda

2 quotes

2 quotes wrongly credited to them

Aldous Huxley

1894–1963 · English novelist and essayist

1 quote

2 quotes wrongly credited to them

Bear Bryant

1913–1983 · American college football coach, Alabama

1 quote

2 quotes wrongly credited to them

Knute Rockne

1888–1931 · Notre Dame head football coach, 1918–1930

1 quote

2 quotes wrongly credited to them

Satchel Paige

1906–1982 · Negro leagues and Major League pitcher

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

Seneca the Younger

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

14 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Napoleon Hill

1883–1970 · American self-help author · “Think and Grow Rich” (1937)

9 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Bill Shankly

1913–1981 · Scottish football manager, Liverpool FC 1959–1974

6 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Rainer Maria Rilke

1875–1926 · Austrian poet & novelist, writing in German and French

6 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Richard Branson

Born 1950 · British entrepreneur · founder of Virgin Atlantic

6 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Anaïs Nin

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

5 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Blaise Pascal

1623–1662 · French mathematician, physicist and religious philosopher

5 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Adam Smith

1723–1790 · Scottish moral philosopher & political economist

4 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Heraclitus

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

4 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Jeff Bezos

b. 1964 · Founder of Amazon; CEO 1994–2021

4 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Plutarch

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

4 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

René Descartes

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

4 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Thích Nhất Hạnh

1926–2022 · Vietnamese Thiền Buddhist monk, poet and peace activist

4 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Thomas Paine

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

4 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

William James

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

4 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Zora Neale Hurston

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

4 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Aesop

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

3 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Arthur Ashe

1943–1993 · American tennis champion, author and activist

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

Brené Brown

Born 18 November 1965 · American research professor, University of Houston

3 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Dante Alighieri

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

3 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Frank Sinatra

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

3 quotes · 2 songs

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Geoffrey Chaucer

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

3 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

George Eliot

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

3 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

1712–1778 · Genevan-born Enlightenment philosopher & writer

3 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

John Stuart Mill

1806–1873 · English philosopher, economist & MP for Westminster

3 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Mae West

1893–1980 · American actress, playwright & screenwriter

3 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Patrick Henry

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

3 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Simone de Beauvoir

1908–1986 · French existentialist philosopher, writer & feminist

3 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

W. C. Fields

1880–1946 · American actor, comedian, juggler & writer

3 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Albert Camus

1913–1960 · French novelist, essayist & dramatist · Nobel Prize in Literature, 1957

2 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Archilochus

c. 680–645 BC · Greek lyric poet from Paros, and a soldier

2 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Edward Bulwer-Lytton

1803–1873 · English novelist, playwright & politician

2 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1882–1945 · 32nd President of the United States

2 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

James A. Garfield

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

2 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Jim Valvano

1946–1993 · college basketball coach, broadcaster, founder of the V Foundation

2 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Milton Berle

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

2 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Rabindranath Tagore

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

2 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Thomas Aquinas

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

2 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Virginia Woolf

1882–1941 · English novelist & essayist

2 quotes

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Alexandra K. Trenfor

Unverified · no biography, publication or record located

1 quote

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

Barry Switzer

b. 1937 · American football coach, Oklahoma Sooners and Dallas Cowboys

1 quote

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Cardinal Richelieu

1585–1642 · Armand Jean du Plessis, chief minister to Louis XIII of France

1 quote

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Celeste Holm

1917–2012 · American stage, film and television actress

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

David Lloyd George

1863–1945 · Welsh Liberal statesman; British Prime Minister, 1916–1922

1 quote

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Denis Diderot

1713–1784 · French Enlightenment philosopher, editor of the Encyclopédie

1 quote

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Henry Kissinger

1923–2023 · US National Security Adviser and Secretary of State

1 quote

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

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

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

Johann Sebastian Bach

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

1 quote

1 quote wrongly credited to them

John Maynard Keynes

1883–1946 · English economist, called the father of macroeconomics

1 quote

1 quote wrongly credited to them

John Ruskin

1819–1900 · English art critic, draughtsman and social reformer

1 quote

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Joseph Stalin

1878–1953 · General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, 1922–1952

1 quote

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Louis Armstrong

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

1 quote

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Louis XIV

1638–1715 · King of France, the Sun King, reigned 72 years

1 quote

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Lyndon B. Johnson

1908–1973 · 36th President of the United States

1 quote

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Mayer Amschel Rothschild

1744–1812 · German banker, founder of the Rothschild banking family

1 quote

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Miguel de Cervantes

1547–1616 · Spanish novelist, poet and playwright

1 quote

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Pope John Paul II

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

1 quote

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Saint Ambrose

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

1 quote

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Salvador Dalí

1904–1989 · Spanish surrealist painter & writer

1 quote

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Thomas J. Watson

1874–1956 · Head of CTR and then IBM · the man the quote is pinned on

1 quote

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Vladimir Lenin

1870–1924 · Russian revolutionary, first head of the Soviet state

1 quote

1 quote wrongly credited to them

W.E.B. Du Bois

1868–1963 · American sociologist, historian and civil rights leader

1 quote

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Walt Whitman

1819–1892 · American poet, essayist & journalist

1 quote

1 quote wrongly credited to them

Abraham Maslow

1908–1970 · American psychologist · Brandeis University · hierarchy of needs

11 quotes

Mike Tyson

Born 1966 · American boxer · undisputed heavyweight champion, 1987–1990

7 quotes

Will Durant

1885–1981 · American historian & philosopher

7 quotes

Booker T. Washington

1856–1915 · American educator, author and first leader of Tuskegee

6 quotes

Epictetus

c. 50 – c. 135 AD · Greek Stoic philosopher · taught at Nicopolis

6 quotes

Ted Williams

1918–2002 · Boston Red Sox outfielder, the last man to hit .400

6 quotes

Barack Obama

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

5 quotes

Francis Bacon

1561–1626 · English philosopher, statesman & essayist

5 quotes

Jesse Owens

1913–1980 · American sprinter and long jumper · four gold medals at Berlin 1936

5 quotes

Kobe Bryant

1978–2020 · NBA shooting guard · Los Angeles Lakers, 1996–2016

5 quotes

Michel de Montaigne

1533–1592 · French essayist, magistrate and mayor of Bordeaux

5 quotes

Pelé

1940–2022 · Brazilian footballer, named Athlete of the Century by the IOC in 1999

5 quotes

Alexander Pope

1688–1744 · English poet, satirist and translator

4 quotes

Charlotte Brontë

1816–1855 · English novelist and poet, published as Currer Bell

4 quotes

Emily Dickinson

1830–1886 · American poet, Amherst, Massachusetts

4 quotes

Epicurus

341–270 BC · Greek philosopher, founder of Epicureanism

4 quotes

F. Scott Fitzgerald

1896–1940 · American novelist & Hollywood screenwriter

4 quotes

Frederick Douglass

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

4 quotes

Horace

65–8 BC · Roman lyric poet & satirist

4 quotes

John Donne

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

4 quotes

John Muir

1838–1914 · Scottish-born American naturalist & wilderness advocate

4 quotes

Martin Luther

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

4 quotes

T. S. Eliot

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

4 quotes

Taylor Caldwell

1900–1985 · British-born American novelist

4 quotes

Anne Frank

1929–1945 · German-born diarist & Holocaust victim

3 quotes

Bill Clinton

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

3 quotes

D.H. Lawrence

1885–1930 · English novelist, poet & essayist

3 quotes

David Hume

1711–1776 · Scottish Enlightenment philosopher, historian & essayist

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

Emo Philips

b. 1956 · American stand-up comedian

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

Jackie Robinson

1919–1972 · First Black player in modern Major League Baseball

3 quotes

James Joyce

1882–1941 · Irish novelist & poet

3 quotes

Jane Austen

1775 – 1817 · English novelist

3 quotes

Jean-Paul Sartre

1905–1980 · French existentialist philosopher, playwright & novelist

3 quotes

John Butler Yeats

1839–1922 · Irish portrait painter · father of W. B. and Jack B. Yeats

3 quotes

John Milton

1608–1674 · English poet, polemicist and civil servant

3 quotes

Jonathan Swift

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

3 quotes

Julius Caesar

100–44 BC · Roman general, statesman & dictator

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

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

Michael Porter

Born 1947 · Harvard Business School economist and strategy theorist

3 quotes

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

1809–1894 · American physician, poet and Harvard anatomy professor

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

Squire Bill Widener

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

3 quotes

Susan B. Anthony

1820–1906 · American suffragist & social reformer

3 quotes

Thomas Carlyle

1795–1881 · Scottish essayist, historian & philosopher

3 quotes

Thomas Fuller

1654–1734 · English physician & adage collector

3 quotes

Virgil

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

3 quotes

Alan Kay

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

2 quotes

Amos

8th century BC · Hebrew prophet & shepherd of Tekoa

2 quotes

Archimedes

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

2 quotes

Arthur Schopenhauer

1788–1860 · German philosopher of will and pessimism

2 quotes

Charles J. Sykes

Born 1954 · American author, radio host and political commentator

2 quotes

Christian D. Larson

1874–1954 · American New Thought writer & lecturer

2 quotes

Christopher Reeve

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

2 quotes

Ed Wynn

1886–1966 · American comedian and actor, “The Perfect Fool”

2 quotes

Elbert Hubbard

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

2 quotes

Fernando Sabino

1923–2004 · Brazilian writer and journalist

2 quotes

Fielding H. Yost

1871–1946 · Michigan football coach & athletic director

2 quotes

G. Stanley Hall

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

2 quotes

George Santayana

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

2 quotes

George W. Bush

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

2 quotes

Henry Stanley Haskins

1875–1957 · Wall Street trader & aphorist

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 R. Sherman

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

2 quotes

Jean Cocteau

1889–1963 · French poet, playwright, novelist and filmmaker

2 quotes

John Basil Barnhill

1864–1929 · American writer, editor & anti-socialist debater

2 quotes

John Heider

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

2 quotes

John Keats

1795–1821 · English Romantic poet

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

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

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

2 quotes

Leo Durocher

1905–1991 · Major-league shortstop and manager; Hall of Fame, 1994

2 quotes

Leon C. Megginson

1921–2010 · American management professor, Louisiana State University

2 quotes

Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola

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

2 quotes

Mary Schmich

b. 1953 · Chicago Tribune columnist

2 quotes

Mason Locke Weems

1759–1825 · Anglican parson, traveling bookseller & Washington's first popular biographer

2 quotes

Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson & Edgar Allan Woolf

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

2 quotes

Peter Lynch

Born 1944 · American investor, fund manager & author

2 quotes

Rev. Clarence H. Wilson

Congregational minister, Flatbush, Brooklyn · earliest documented use, 1927

2 quotes

Rev. H. K. Williams

fl. 1919 · Clergyman, writing in Young People’s Service

2 quotes

Robert Benchley

1889–1945 · American humorist, drama critic and actor

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

Robert Louis Stevenson

1850–1894 · Scottish novelist, essayist, travel writer and poet

2 quotes

Robert Quillen

1887–1948 · American journalist, humorist & small-town newspaper editor

2 quotes

Roy Scheider

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

2 quotes

Samuel Butler

baptized 1613 – 1680 · English poet and satirist, author of Hudibras

2 quotes

Sol Hurok

1888–1974 · Russian-American impresario

2 quotes

Stanley Weiser & Oliver Stone

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

2 quotes

Ted Tally

b. 9 April 1952 · American playwright and screenwriter

2 quotes

The Book of Proverbs

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

2 quotes

Thomas Henry Huxley

1825–1895 · English biologist and educator, ‘Darwin’s Bulldog’

2 quotes

Toni Morrison

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

2 quotes

W. Somerset Maugham

1874–1965 · English novelist, playwright and short-story writer

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 Elliot Griffis

1843–1928 · American orientalist, minister & author · in Japan 1870–1874

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

Élie Metchnikoff

1845–1916 · Russian-born biologist at the Pasteur Institute · 1908 Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine

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. E. Housman

1859–1936 · English classical scholar & poet

1 quote

A. H. Reginald Buller

1874–1944 · British-Canadian mycologist and Professor of Botany

1 quote

A. J. Liebling

1904–1963 · American journalist & New Yorker press critic

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

Adolf Hitler

1889–1945 · Chancellor of Germany from 1933; addressed his commanders at Obersalzberg on 22 August 1939

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 Ashley-Pitt

Pen name of Francis Phillip Wernig · American writer, photographer and publisher

1 quote

Alan Watts

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

1 quote

Albert Schweitzer

1875–1965 · Born in Alsace · Theologian, organist, physician · Nobel Peace Prize 1952

1 quote

Aldo Leopold

1887–1948 · American forester, wildlife ecologist, professor of game management

1 quote

Alexandre Dumas fils

1824–1895 · French novelist and playwright

1 quote

Alexandre Lacassagne

1843–1924 · French forensic physician & founder of the Lyon school of criminology

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 Raine

1836–1908 · Welsh novelist · pen name of Anne Adalisa Beynon Puddicombe, née Evans

1 quote

Allen Saunders

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

1 quote

Alphonse Karr

1808–1890 · French critic, journalist and novelist; editor of Le Figaro

1 quote

Ambrose Redmoon

1933–1996 · American writer, beatnik & rock band manager

1 quote

Amelia Earhart

1897–1937 · American aviation pioneer & author

1 quote

America’s Last Line of Defense

Satire and parody network of Facebook pages and websites · flagship page watermarked “Nothing on this page is real”

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

Andrew John Herbertson

1865–1915 · Scottish geographer and Oxford’s first Professor of Geography

1 quote

Anita Merina

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

1 quote

Anita Roddick

1942–2007 · British entrepreneur, founder of The Body Shop

1 quote

Ann Richards

1933–2006 · 45th governor of Texas · Democratic convention keynoter, 1988

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

Anne Sullivan

1866–1936 · American teacher; Helen Keller’s instructor and companion for 49 years

1 quote

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

1900–1944 · French aviator, airmail pioneer & writer

1 quote

Anton Wildgans

1881–1932 · Austrian poet, playwright and twice director of the Vienna Burgtheater

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

Artemus Ward (Charles Farrar Browne)

1834–1867 · American humorist, editor & comic lecturer

1 quote

Arthur G. Lewis

fl. 1911 · American columnist & railroad passenger agent

1 quote

Arthur Wing Pinero

1855–1934 · English playwright & actor

1 quote

Assyrian clay tablet

c. 2800 BC · a source that does not exist

1 quote

Attar of Nishapur

c. 1145 – c. 1221 · Persian Sufi poet and hagiographer of Nishapur

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

Barry Commoner

1917–2012 · American biologist, ecologist & environmental activist

1 quote

Ben Moreell

1892–1978 · U.S. Navy admiral, civil engineer & founder of the Seabees

1 quote

Benjamin Brewster

Yale College class of 1882 · essayist, The Yale Literary Magazine

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

Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby

Songwriters and screenwriters · credited screenplay, Duck Soup (1933)

1 quote

Bertha Flowers

Educator in Stamps, Arkansas · Maya Angelou’s childhood mentor

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

Bill Miller

American newspaper columnist and boxing publicist · active 1920s

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

Billy Wilder & I. A. L. Diamond

Billy Wilder 1906–2002 · I. A. L. Diamond 1920–1988 · screenwriting partners

1 quote

Bob Moorehead

American pastor & author · senior pastor, Overlake Christian Church, 1970–1998

1 quote

Brendan Gill

1914–1997 · New Yorker writer, drama and architecture critic

1 quote

Brian Howard

1905–1958 · English poet and New Statesman writer

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 L. Becker

1873–1945 · American historian; Professor of History at the University of Kansas 1902–1916, then at Cornell 1917–1941

1 quote

Carl W. Buehner

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

1 quote

Carlton W. Berenda

American philosopher of science · Professor of Philosophy, University of Oklahoma

1 quote

Cesar Chavez

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

1 quote

Cesare Baronio

1538–1607 · Italian cardinal, Oratorian, and ecclesiastical historian

1 quote

Chabrias

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

1 quote

Charles Caleb Colton

1777–1832 · English cleric, writer and aphorist

1 quote

Charles de Gaulle

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

1 quote

Charles Dudley Warner

1829–1900 · American essayist, novelist & Hartford Courant editor

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 G. Binderup

1873–1950 · Democratic congressman from Nebraska and monetary-reform campaigner

1 quote

Charles Godfrey Leland

1824–1903 · American humorist & folklorist

1 quote

Charles Holland Duell

1850–1920 · U.S. Commissioner of Patents, 1898–1901 · later a federal appeals judge

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

Charles Reade

1814–1884 · British novelist & dramatist

1 quote

Charles Roppel

California mental-health official · earliest documented use of the illness/wellness wordplay, March 1984

1 quote

Charlie Munger

1924–2023 · Investor, lawyer & Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway

1 quote

Chinua Achebe

1930–2013 · Nigerian novelist, poet & literary critic

1 quote

Christopher Makos

Born 1948 · American photographer · Warhol's Factory and Interview circle

1 quote

Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely and Michael Petroni

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

1 quote

Chuck Palahniuk

Born 1962 · American novelist and essayist

1 quote

Clara Bow

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

1 quote

Clare Boothe Luce

1903–1987 · American playwright, journalist & U.S. ambassador

1 quote

Clarence Darrow

1857–1938 · American defense lawyer, agnostic, and opponent of capital punishment

1 quote

Clarence E. Bleicher

President, DeSoto division, Chrysler Corporation · U.S. Senate witness, 1947

1 quote

Coleman Barks

1937–2026 · American poet · the man who made Rumi a bestseller in English

1 quote

Coleman Cox

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

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 Wasserman

1914–2008 · American playwright and screenwriter

1 quote

Dan Millman

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

1 quote

Daniel J. Boorstin

1914–2004 · American historian & twelfth Librarian of Congress

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 Starr Jordan

1851–1931 · Ichthyologist, founding president of Stanford University

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

Dean Alfange

1897–1989 · American lawyer and politician; a founder of New York’s Liberal Party

1 quote

Desmond Tutu

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

1 quote

Diana Vreeland

1903–1989 · Fashion editor — Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, and the Met's Costume Institute

1 quote

Dick Rowe

1921–1986 · British record producer · head of A&R (Singles), Decca Records

1 quote

Disney’s story team

Eight credited story writers · Walt Disney Productions, 1937

1 quote

Dixie Willson

1890–1974 · American children’s author, screenwriter & P. F. Volland verse writer

1 quote

Dmitri Merezhkovsky

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

1 quote

Dolly Parton

b. 1946 · American country singer and songwriter

1 quote · 1 song

Don B. Kates Jr.

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

1 quote

Donald Knuth

Born 1938 · American computer scientist · Stanford professor emeritus

1 quote

Douglas McGrath

1958–2022 · American screenwriter, director & playwright

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

Eddie Cantor

1892–1964 · American comedian, singer, songwriter & radio star

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

Edgar Quinet

1803–1875 · French historian, poet and politician

1 quote

Edmund Wilson

1895–1972 · American critic, essayist and literary journalist

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 E. Slosson

1865–1929 · American chemist, editor and first head of Science Service

1 quote

Edwin H. Stuart

Editor & publisher, Typo Graphic · Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

1 quote

Edwin Hubbell Chapin

1814–1880 · American Universalist preacher & orator

1 quote

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

1806–1861 · English Victorian poet

1 quote

Elizabeth II

1926–2022 · Queen of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth realms

1 quote

Ella Fitzgerald

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

1 quote

Ellen Parr

Dates unknown · credited in Reader’s Digest, December 1980

1 quote

Ellen Pickering

1802–1843 · British novelist, Bath

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

Emmett F. Fields

American atheist writer & freethought publisher · operated the Bank of Wisdom, Louisville, Kentucky

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

Ernest Rutherford

1871–1937 · New Zealand-born physicist, Nobel laureate in Chemistry 1908

1 quote

Evelyn Beatrice Hall

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

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 Crane

1861–1928 · American clergyman and syndicated newspaper columnist

1 quote

Frank Fay

1891–1961 · American vaudeville comedian & stage actor

1 quote

Frank Harary

1921–2005 · American mathematician · graph theory

1 quote

Frank Norris

1870–1902 · American novelist and journalist of the naturalist school

1 quote

Frank Outlaw

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

1 quote

Frank Rand

St. Louis, 1933 · the dieter behind the line, known only from Woollcott’s radio anecdote

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

Frederic Harrison

1831–1923 · English jurist, historian & leading English Positivist

1 quote

Frederick T. Gates

1853–1929 · Baptist minister; Rockefeller's principal philanthropic adviser and chairman of the General Education Board

1 quote

Frederick the Great

1712–1786 · King of Prussia 1740–1786 · soldier-king and military writer

1 quote

Frida Kahlo

1907–1954 · Mexican painter & diarist

1 quote

G. F. Allen

fl. 1959 · British Buddhist anthologist

1 quote

G. Michael Hopf

b. 1970 · American novelist and former US Marine

1 quote

Garson Kanin

1912–1999 · American screenwriter, director and memoirist

1 quote

Gary Player

b. 1935 · South African golfer · nine major championships, career Grand Slam

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

Genghis Khan

c. 1162–1227 · founder and first Great Khan of the Mongol Empire

1 quote

Geoffrey Perkins

1953–2008 · British comedy writer & producer · Radio Active, Father Ted, Have I Got News for You

1 quote

Georg Cantor

1845–1918 · German mathematician, founder of set theory

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 Matthew Adams

1878–1962 · American newspaper columnist & syndicate founder

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

Giuseppe Baretti

1719–1789 · Italian literary critic, translator and lexicographer

1 quote

Gloria Steinem

b. 1934 · American feminist, journalist & activist

1 quote

Gordon W. Allport

1897–1967 · American personality psychologist, Harvard University

1 quote

Gouverneur Morris

1752–1816 · Pennsylvania delegate to the Constitutional Convention · U.S. Minister to France, 1792–1794

1 quote

Grace Hopper

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

1 quote

Grant Allen

1848–1899 · Canadian science writer, evolutionist & novelist

1 quote

Grantland Rice

1880–1954 · American sportswriter, columnist & poet

1 quote

H. Jackson Brown Jr.

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

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 Russell “Red” Sanders

1905–1958 · American football coach, Vanderbilt & UCLA

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

Heywood Hale Broun

1918–2001 · CBS sports commentator, sportswriter & actor

1 quote

Honoré de Balzac

1799–1850 · French novelist · author of La Comédie humaine

1 quote

Howard Zinn

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

1 quote

Hyman G. Rickover

1900–1986 · Admiral, US Navy · father of the nuclear Navy

1 quote

Iain S. Thomas

b. 1980 · South African poet, author of I Wrote This For You

1 quote

Indira Gandhi

1917–1984 · Prime Minister of India

1 quote

Ira Hayes

1923–1955 · U.S. Marine, Gila River Pima, Iwo Jima flag raiser

1 quote

Isaac Asimov

1920–1992 · American writer & professor of biochemistry

1 quote

Isaac Newton

1642–1727 · English physicist & mathematician

1 quote

Israel Zangwill

1864–1926 · British novelist, playwright & essayist

1 quote

Ivor Novello

1893–1951 · Welsh composer, actor and dramatist; dialogue credit on Tarzan the Ape Man (1932)

1 quote

J. Adam Bede

1856–1942 · U.S. Representative from Minnesota, 1903–1909 · newspaperman and humorist

1 quote

J. J. Hahn

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

1 quote

J. K. Rowling

b. 1965 · British novelist · author of the Harry Potter series

1 quote

J. Richard Lessor

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

1 quote

J. Robert Oppenheimer

1904–1967 · theoretical physicist, director of Los Alamos

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

Jack Oakie

1903–1978 · American film comedian

1 quote

Jack Swigert

1931–1982 · NASA astronaut; command module pilot, Apollo 13

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

James Agate

1877–1947 · English theatre critic and diarist, The Sunday Times

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 Freeman Clarke

1810–1888 · American Unitarian minister, theologian and author

1 quote

James Howell

c. 1594 – c. 1666 · Anglo-Welsh letter-writer & first Historiographer Royal

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

Jamie Barrett

Advertising copywriter · Wieden + Kennedy, then Goodby Silverstein · founder of barrettSF

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 de La Bruyère

1645–1696 · French philosopher & moralist, author of Les Caractères

1 quote

Jean de La Fontaine

1621–1695 · French fabulist and poet

1 quote

Jean Paul

1763–1825 · German Romantic novelist, pen name of Johann Paul Friedrich Richter

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

Jerry Barber

1916–1994 · American professional golfer · 1961 PGA Championship winner

1 quote

Jerry Claiborne

1928–2000 · American college football coach; Bear Bryant assistant at Alabama 1958–60, head coach at Virginia Tech 1961–70

1 quote

Jesse Carr

American labour leader · head of Teamsters Union Local 959, Anchorage, Alaska

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

Jim Wohlford

born 1951 · Major-league outfielder, 1972–1986 · Royals, Brewers, Giants, Expos

1 quote

Jim Wright

Assistant editorial director, The Dallas Morning News · wrote the 1971 version of the quip

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

John A. Shedd

American aphorist · compiler of Salt from My Attic (1928) · life dates not established

1 quote

John Angell James

1785–1859 · English Congregational minister & devotional writer

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 B. Finch

1852–1887 · American temperance orator & chairman of the Prohibition Party

1 quote

John Barth

1930–2024 · American postmodern novelist and professor

1 quote

John Brunner

1934–1995 · British science-fiction novelist · Hugo Award winner

1 quote

John Burroughs

1837–1921 · American naturalist & nature essayist

1 quote

John Charteris

1877–1946 · British brigadier-general; Haig’s chief of intelligence at GHQ, 1915–1918

1 quote

John D. Rockefeller Jr.

1874–1960 · American philanthropist · only son of John D. Rockefeller Sr.

1 quote

John Gardner

1933–1982 · American novelist and creative-writing teacher

1 quote

John Godfrey Saxe

1816–1887 · American lawyer-poet, newspaper editor and lecturer

1 quote

John H. Clarke

1857–1945 · U.S. Supreme Court justice, 1916–1922

1 quote

John H. Secondari

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

1 quote

John Henry Newman

1801–1890 · English theologian, poet & cardinal

1 quote

John Hughes

1950–2009 · American screenwriter, director and producer

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 M. Culkin

1928–1993 · American media scholar and educator; a Jesuit priest until 1969

1 quote

John Philpot Curran

1750–1817 · Irish orator, lawyer & statesman

1 quote

John Sharp Williams

1854–1932 · U.S. senator from Mississippi; House minority leader, 1903–1909

1 quote

John von Neumann

1903–1957 · Hungarian-American mathematician and co-founder of game theory

1 quote

John W. Gardner

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

1 quote

John Wanamaker

1838–1922 · Philadelphia merchant, advertising pioneer and U.S. Postmaster General

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 de Maistre

1753–1821 · Savoyard diplomat and counter-Enlightenment philosopher

1 quote

Joseph Stinson

American screenwriter · credited screenplay, Sudden Impact (1983)

1 quote

K. K. Steincke

Karl Kristian Steincke, 1880–1963 · Danish Social Democratic politician, Minister of Justice and Minister of Social Affairs

1 quote

Karl Marx

1818–1883 · German philosopher, economist and journalist

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

Kenneth V. Lanning

FBI Supervisory Special Agent · Behavioral Science Unit, Quantico

1 quote

Kevin Alfred Strom

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

1 quote

Kim McMillen

American writer · author of When I Loved Myself Enough (St. Martin's Press, 2001)

1 quote

Kin Hubbard

1868–1930 · American cartoonist, humorist and journalist · creator of Abe Martin

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

Kozma Prutkov

Fictional aphorist, 1850s–1860s · pen name of Count Aleksey K. Tolstoy and the three Zhemchuzhnikov brothers

1 quote

L. E. Edwardson

Day city editor, Chicago Herald and Examiner · earliest documented carrier of the adage, 1918

1 quote

L. Ron Hubbard

1911–1986 · pulp science-fiction writer, founder of Dianetics and Scientology

1 quote

Langston Hughes

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

1 quote

Larry Ferguson

American screenwriter and film director · active 1980–2002 · Highlander, Beverly Hills Cop II, The Hunt for Red October, Alien 3

1 quote

Laura Riding & Robert Graves

Riding 1901–1991 · Graves 1895–1985 · poets, critics and co-editors of Epilogue

1 quote

League for Programming Freedom

Founded 1989 · Software-patent and interface-copyright reform group

1 quote

Lee Iacocca

1924–2019 · Ford and Chrysler executive; Chrysler chairman and CEO 1979–1992

1 quote

Leigh Brackett & Lawrence Kasdan

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

1 quote

Leo McGivena

1896–1980 · New York advertising man; publicity manager of the Daily News

1 quote

Leo Rosten

1908–1997 · American humorist, lexicographer & political scientist

1 quote

Leonard Cohen

1934–2016 · Canadian singer-songwriter, poet and novelist

1 quote · 1 song

Les Brown

b. 1945 · American motivational speaker & author

1 quote

Liane Cordes

American meditation writer · The Reflecting Pond (Hazelden, 1981)

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

Lou Gehrig

1903–1941 · New York Yankees first baseman · Baseball Hall of Fame, 1939

1 quote

Louis Jourdan

1810–1881 · French journalist for Le Siècle

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

Lowell L. Bennion

1908–1996 · educator & sociologist

1 quote

Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount Falkland

c. 1610 – 1643 · English writer, MP and Royalist Secretary of State

1 quote

Ludwig van Beethoven

1770–1827 · German composer & pianist

1 quote

Madison Babcock

San Francisco public schools · author of the 1896 superintendent’s report

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

Marc Andreessen

Born 1971 · Netscape co-founder & Silicon Valley venture capitalist

1 quote

Marc Chernoff

Florida-based self-help writer · co-creator of Marc & Angel Hack Life

1 quote

Marcus Bach

1901–1995 · American religious scholar, professor & author

1 quote

Margaret C. Anderson

1886–1973 · American editor, founder of The Little Review

1 quote

Margaret Millar

1915–1994 · Canadian-American mystery novelist

1 quote

Maria Edgeworth

1768–1849 · Anglo-Irish novelist & children’s author

1 quote

Marianne Williamson

Born 1952 · American author, spiritual teacher & lecturer

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

Marshall McLuhan

1911–1980 · Canadian philosopher & media theorist

1 quote

Marthe Troly-Curtin

Born 1884 · novelist · author of the Phrynette novels (1911–1912)

1 quote

Martin Gabel

American actor, director & Broadway producer · died 1986

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 Roberts Rinehart

1876–1958 · American mystery novelist & Saturday Evening Post regular

1 quote

Mary Wollstonecraft

1759–1797 · English writer, philosopher & pioneering feminist

1 quote

Maurice Switzer

b. 1870 · American humorist & advertising writer

1 quote

Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook

1879–1964 · Canadian-British newspaper publisher & wartime minister

1 quote

Max Beerbohm

1872–1956 · English essayist, parodist & caricaturist

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

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

Miguel de Unamuno

1864–1936 · Spanish philosopher, novelist, poet and playwright

1 quote

Mikhail Bakunin

1814–1876 · Russian revolutionary anarchist & political philosopher

1 quote

N. David Mermin

b. 1935 · American solid-state physicist · Cornell University

1 quote

Nathan Myhrvold

Born 1959 · American technologist, inventor and author

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

Newt Gingrich

b. 1943 · U.S. Representative from Georgia 1979–1999 · House Minority Whip in 1991 · Speaker of the House 1995–1999

1 quote

Nicholas Klein

1884–1951 · American labor lawyer & union organizer

1 quote

Nicholas Murray Butler

1862–1947 · President of Columbia University, 1902–1945 · Nobel Peace Prize 1931

1 quote

Nicolas Chamfort

1741–1794 · French writer, playwright & aphorist

1 quote

Niels Bohr

1885–1962 · Danish theoretical physicist · Nobel Prize in Physics, 1922

1 quote

Nina Simone

1933–2003 · Tryon, North Carolina · singer, pianist and composer

1 quote · 2 songs

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

Og Mandino

1923–1996 · American self-help writer · The Greatest Salesman in the World

1 quote

Ogden Nash

1902–1971 · American poet of light verse; New Yorker contributor

1 quote

Olin Miller

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

1 quote

Oliver Goldsmith

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

1 quote

Ollie Crawford

Philadelphia Inquirer columnist · “Headline Hopping,” 13 August 1954

1 quote

Oprah Winfrey

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

1 quote

Oscar Levant

1906–1972 · American pianist, composer, actor and radio wit

1 quote

Ovid

20 March 43 BC – AD 17/18 · Roman poet, born Publius Ovidius Naso

1 quote

P. C. Hodgell

b. 1951 · American fantasy novelist & former academic

1 quote

P. J. O’Rourke

1947–2022 · American satirist, journalist and libertarian humorist

1 quote

P. T. Barnum

1810–1891 · American showman, businessman & circus founder

1 quote

Paul Batalden

American pediatrician and health-care quality-improvement leader · founding chair of the IHI board of directors

1 quote

Paul Brand

1914–2003 · English hand surgeon & leprosy pioneer

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

Percy Colson

1873–1952 · British author and biographer

1 quote

Phil Karlton

1947–1997 · engineer at Xerox PARC, DEC, Silicon Graphics and Netscape

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

Ray Manzarek

1939–2013 · American keyboardist, co-founder of the Doors

1 quote

Richard Brinsley Sheridan

1751–1816 · Anglo-Irish playwright, poet and Whig MP

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 Browning

1812–1889 · English poet, master of the dramatic monologue

1 quote

Robert Bulwer-Lytton

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

1 quote

Robert Forman Horton

1855–1934 · English Congregational minister · Yale Lyman Beecher lecturer, 1893

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 Orben

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

1 quote

Rod McKuen

1933–2015 · American poet, singer-songwriter and composer

1 quote · 1 song

Roger Bacon

c. 1219/20–c. 1292 · English Franciscan friar, philosopher and polymath

1 quote

Roger J. Corless

1938–2007 · British-born American Buddhist studies scholar · Duke University

1 quote

Roger Miller

1936–1992 · American country singer-songwriter

1 quote · 1 song

Rosalind Franklin

1920–1958 · chemist & X-ray crystallographer

1 quote

Rudyard Kipling

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

1 quote

Russell B. Long

1918–2003 · United States Senator for Louisiana, 1948–1987; chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, 1966–1981

1 quote

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

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

1 quote

Sally Ride

1951–2012 · Physicist & first American woman in space

1 quote

Sam Levenson

1911–1980 · American humorist, teacher & TV personality

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

Sean Morey

Born 1953 · American stand-up comedian and comic songwriter

1 quote

Selwyn Duke

American writer & columnist · originated the line in 2009

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 Ernest Benn

1875–1954 · British publisher, writer and political publicist

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

Sir Josiah Stamp

1880–1941 · English economist, statistician & director of the Bank of England

1 quote

Sir Thomas Browne

1605–1682 · English physician, polymath & author

1 quote

Sogyal Rinpoche

1947–2019 · Tibetan Buddhist teacher · founder of the Rigpa network

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

Spike Lee

Born 1957 · American filmmaker & actor; Mars Blackmon in Nike's Air Jordan ads

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 Kubrick

1928–1999 · American filmmaker · quoted the line in 1966 and twice declined to claim it

1 quote

Stendhal

1783–1842 · French novelist & critic, pen name of Marie-Henri Beyle

1 quote

Stephen M. R. Covey

American author · former President and CEO of the Covey Leadership Center · The SPEED of Trust (2006)

1 quote

Steve Martin

Born 1945 · American comedian, actor, writer and musician

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

Susanna Clark & Richard Leigh

Susanna Clark (1939–2012) & Richard Leigh (b. 1951) · Nashville songwriters

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

Tacitus

c. AD 56–c. 120 · Roman senator, consul & historian

1 quote

Ted Thackrey, Jr.

1918–2001 · American newspaper reporter, rewrite man and author

1 quote

Terence

c. 195/185 – c. 159 BC · Roman comic playwright, born in Carthage

1 quote

The Book of Isaiah

Hebrew prophetic book · source of the peaceable-kingdom vision in chapters 11 and 65

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 Provisional IRA

Irish republican paramilitary organisation · active 1969–2005 · statement issued 12 October 1984

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 à Kempis

c. 1380 – 1 May 1471 · German-Dutch canon regular & devotional writer

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 Hitchcock Sr.

1860–1941 · American polo pioneer and steeplechase trainer

1 quote

Thomas J. Yates

Cornell class of 1902 · electrical engineer from Scipio, Utah · author of the February 1939 Improvement Era article

1 quote

Thomas L. Friedman

b. 1953 · American journalist & New York Times foreign-affairs columnist

1 quote

Thomas-Henri Martin

1813–1884 · French Hellenist, historian of science and philosopher

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

Tom Sims

American newspaper humorist · syndicated NEA columnist of the 1920s

1 quote

Tryon Edwards

1809–1894 · American theologian and compiler of A Dictionary of Thoughts

1 quote

Ulysses S. Grant

1822–1885 · Union commanding general & 18th President of the United States

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

Vicki Corona

Polynesian dance author & instructor · Dance Fantasy Productions

1 quote

W. B. ‘Bill’ Hayler

U.S. Navy officer · Naval War College student, 1960 · commanding officer, USS Buck (DD-761)

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

Wallace S. Sayre

1905–1972 · American political scientist, Columbia University

1 quote

Walter ‘Red’ Smith

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

1 quote

Walter Alexander Raleigh

1861–1922 · Oxford's first Professor of English Literature

1 quote

Walter Gretzky

1938–2021 · Bell Canada repairman, minor-hockey coach, father of Wayne Gretzky

1 quote

Walter J. Hickel

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

1 quote

Walter Kerr

1913–1996 · American drama critic · 1978 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism

1 quote

Walter Kotschnig

1901–1985 · Austrian-born American diplomat and refugee-relief official

1 quote

Walter S. Trumbull

1880–1961 · American sportswriter · sports editor, The New York Sun

1 quote

Warren Bennis

1925–2014 · American organizational theorist & pioneer of leadership studies

1 quote

Washington Irving

1783–1859 · American author, essayist & historian

1 quote

Werner Jaeger

1888–1961 · German-American classical scholar

1 quote

Wernher von Braun

1912–1977 · German-American rocket engineer

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 Drummond

1769–1828 · Scottish diplomat, MP and sceptical philosopher

1 quote

William Edgar Borah

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

1 quote

William Fitzjames Oldham

1854–1937 · Methodist Episcopal bishop & missionary to South Asia

1 quote

William Gunning King

1859–1940 · English painter, etcher & Punch illustrator

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 Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne

1779–1848 · British Prime Minister and Queen Victoria’s first political mentor

1 quote

William Makepeace Thackeray

1811–1863 · English novelist & satirist

1 quote

William Nevins

1797–1835 · American minister and religious writer

1 quote

William Nicholson

Born 1948 · English screenwriter, playwright & novelist

1 quote

William Penn

1644–1718 · English Quaker writer and founder of Pennsylvania

1 quote

William Pitt the Elder, 1st Earl of Chatham

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

1 quote

William S. Walsh

1854–1919 · American editor and compiler of literary curiosities

1 quote

William Wordsworth

1770–1850 · English Romantic poet · Poet Laureate 1843–1850

1 quote

William Wrigley Jr.

1861–1932 · American chewing-gum manufacturer; founder of the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company and majority owner of the Chicago Cubs

1 quote

Willie Nelson

b. 29 April 1933, Abbott, Texas · American singer, guitarist, songwriter & author

1 quote

Woodrow Wilson

1856–1924 · 28th U.S. President; earlier a Princeton professor and university president

1 quote

Woody Allen

b. 1 December 1935 · American filmmaker, comedian and writer

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

Yoko Ono

b. 18 February 1933 · Japanese artist, musician and peace activist

1 quote

A Taste of Honey

Formed Los Angeles, 1972 · Capitol Records · No. 3 Hot 100 with “Sukiyaki” in 1981

1 song

A.P. Carter

1891–1960 · American folk musician and song collector

1 song

Ace of Base

Swedish pop group, formed 1990 in Gothenburg

1 song

Adele

b. 1988 · English singer-songwriter

1 song

Aerosmith

Formed 1970 in Boston · American hard rock band

1 song

Al Green

b. 1946 · American soul singer · Hi Records, Memphis

1 song

Alan Merrill & Jake Hooker

Members of The Arrows · wrote the song in 1975

1 song

Albert Hammond & Diane Warren

British-Gibraltarian songwriter and American songwriter

1 song

Alex Harvey

1941–2020 · American country singer-songwriter · Capitol Records

1 song

Alex North & Hy Zaret

Alex North 1910-1991, composer · Hy Zaret 1907-2007, lyricist · both American

1 song

Amy Winehouse

1983–2011 · English soul and jazz singer

1 song

Anna Kendrick

b. 1985 · American actor and singer

1 song

Anne Bredon

7 September 1930 – 9 November 2019 · American folk singer and composer

1 song

Anthony B. Stephens, Arnecia Michelle Harris and John Bellamy

Songwriters credited on “You Got the Love” · also recorded under the name The Source

1 song

Anthony Newley & Leslie Bricusse

British songwriting partnership · wrote the 1964 musical

1 song

Aretha Franklin

1942–2018 · American soul and gospel singer

1 song

Arlo Guthrie

b. 1947 · American folk singer · son of Woody Guthrie

1 song

Arthur “Guitar Boogie” Smith with Don Reno

Arthur Smith 1921-2014 · Don Reno 1926-1984 · MGM Records, 1955

1 song

B. J. Thomas

1942-2021 · Hugo, Oklahoma · Scepter Records

1 song

Barrett Strong

1941–2023 · American singer and songwriter · Detroit

1 song

Bart Howard

1915–2004 · American songwriter and pianist

1 song

Bennie Benjamin, Horace Ott & Sol Marcus

Credited on the label as Bennie Benjamin, Sol Marcus and Gloria Caldwell

1 song

Bernie Wayne & Lee Morris

Wayne 1919–1993 · Morris 1912–1978 · American songwriters

1 song

Berry Gordy & Janie Bradford

Berry Gordy b. 1929; Janie Bradford b. 1939 · American songwriters, Detroit

1 song

Bert Berns

American songwriter and record producer · produced the 1964 Atlantic session

1 song

Bert Berns and Jerry Ragovoy

Bert Berns, 1929–1967 · Jerry Ragovoy, 1930–2011 · American songwriters and producers

1 song

Big Joe Williams

1903-1982 · Delta blues singer and guitarist · recorded the song first, Chicago, 1935

1 song

Big Mama Thornton

1926–1984 · American blues and R&B singer

1 song

Billy Joel

b. 1949 · American singer-songwriter · Columbia Records

1 song

Blondie

American new wave band, formed in New York in 1974

1 song

Blue Swede

Active 1973-1979 · Sweden · fronted by Björn Skifs

1 song

Bob Dylan

b. 1941 · American songwriter · wrote the song for <em>Time Out of Mind</em>

1 song

Bob Dylan and Ketch Secor

Credited co-writers · a 1973 sketch finished decades later

1 song

Bobby Darin

1936-1973 · American singer, songwriter and actor

1 song

Bobby Vinton

b. 1935 · American pop singer, ‘The Polish Prince’

1 song

Bobby Womack and Shirley Womack

Bobby Womack, 1944–2014 · co-written with his sister-in-law Shirley Womack

1 song

Boney M.

West German vocal group, formed 1974 by producer Frank Farian

1 song

Bonnie Raitt

b. 1949 · American singer and slide guitarist

1 song

Bonnie Tyler

b. 1951, Skewen, Wales · rock and pop singer

1 song

Boudleaux Bryant

1920-1987 - American songwriter, Nashville

1 song

Bread

American soft rock band, formed Los Angeles 1968

1 song

Brent Dowe and Trevor McNaughton

Jamaican singers and songwriters; Dowe died 2006, McNaughton died 2018

1 song

Bruce Springsteen

b. 1949 · American singer, songwriter and musician

1 song

Carl Perkins

1932–1998 · American rockabilly singer, songwriter and guitarist

1 song

Carole King

b. 1942 · American singer-songwriter

1 song

Cat Stevens

b. 1948, London - British singer-songwriter, later known as Yusuf Islam

1 song

Charles Fox & Norman Gimbel

Charles Fox (b. 1940) & Norman Gimbel (1927–2018) · American songwriters

1 song

Charles Trenet

1913-2001 · French singer-songwriter

1 song

Cher

b. 1946 · American singer and actress · Imperial Records, 1966

1 song

Chris Kenner

1929–1976 · New Orleans R&B singer-songwriter · Instant Records

1 song

Clarence “Sonny” Henry

American jazz and R&B guitarist · Willie Bobo's guitarist on the Verve albums

1 song

Clarence “Tom” Ashley & Gwen Foster

Ashley 1895-1967, banjo and guitar; Foster 1903-1954, harmonica and guitar

1 song

Claude “Curly” Putman Jr.

1930–2016 · American songwriter · Tree, Nashville

1 song

Claude François

1939-1978 · French singer · Disques Flèche

1 song

Cutler, Preven & Thornalley

Scott Cutler, Anne Preven & Phil Thornalley · wrote it 1991

1 song

Cy Grant

1919–2010 · Guyanese-British singer and actor

1 song

Cyndi Lauper

b. 1953 · American singer, songwriter and actress

1 song

Dandy Livingstone

b. 14 December 1943, Kingston, Jamaica; Jamaican-born British ska, rocksteady and reggae singer and producer

1 song

Darius Rucker

American singer · Hootie & the Blowfish frontman turned country artist

1 song

Dave Van Ronk and the Hudson Dusters

1936–2002 · American folk and blues singer, and his Greenwich Village band

1 song

David Bowie

1947–2016 · English singer and songwriter

1 song

David Gates

b. 11 December 1940, Tulsa, Oklahoma · American singer-songwriter and producer

1 song

Dean Martin

American singer and actor, 1917-1995 · Capitol Records, 1954

1 song

Dinah Washington

1924–1963 · American jazz, blues and R&B singer

1 song

Dorsey Brothers’ Orchestra

Active 1934–1935 · American dance band led by Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, recording for Decca

1 song

Dusty Springfield

1939–1999 · English pop and blue-eyed soul singer

1 song

Eagles

Formed 1971, Los Angeles · American rock band

1 song

Ed Cobb

1938–1999 · American songwriter and producer

1 song

Ed James

Songwriter, Bakersfield, California · co-writer of “The Goo Goo Muck”

1 song

Eddie Cooley & Otis Blackwell

Cooley 1933–2020 · Blackwell 1931–2002 · American songwriters

1 song

Ednaswap

American rock band · active 1993–1999

1 song

Edwin Starr

1942–2003 · American soul singer · born Charles Edwin Hatcher, Nashville

1 song

Elvis Presley

1935–1977 · American singer

3 songs

Eric Clapton

Born 30 March 1945 · Ripley, Surrey, England

2 songs

Eric Weissberg & Steve Mandell

Eric Weissberg 1939-2020 · Steve Mandell c. 1941-2018 · Warner Bros. Records, December 1972

1 song

Erma Franklin

1938–2002 · American soul and gospel singer

1 song

Etta James

1938–2012 · American blues, R&B and soul singer

1 song

Fleetwood Mac

British blues band · Blue Horizon single, 1968

2 songs

Florence + the Machine

British band formed in London, 2007 · Island Records · single released 2009

1 song

Fred Neil

1936-2001 · American folk singer-songwriter · Capitol Records

1 song

Fugees

American hip-hop group · active 1990s

1 song

Garnet Mimms and the Enchanters

Garnet Mimms, b. 16 November 1933 · American soul singer · group formed 1961

1 song

Gary Brooker

1945–2022 · Procol Harum singer and pianist

1 song

Gary Jules

b. 1969 · American singer-songwriter

1 song

Giancarlo Bigazzi

1940–2012 · Italian lyricist, composer and producer

1 song

Gilbert Bécaud

1927–2001 · French singer, composer and pianist · music

1 song

Glen Campbell

22 April 1936 – 8 August 2017 · American country singer, guitarist and session musician

1 song

Glenn Miller and His Orchestra

American swing dance band · formed 1938 · last civilian concert September 27, 1942

1 song

Gloria Jones

b. 1944 · American soul singer and songwriter

1 song

Grand Funk Railroad

American rock band, Flint, Michigan

1 song

Hachidai Nakamura

Wrote the music of “Ue o Muite Arukō” (1961)

1 song

Hambone Willie Newbern

b. c. 1901, Haywood County, Tennessee; d. 1947 or 1965 (disputed) - Delta blues guitarist, singer and mandolin player

1 song

Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes

American soul group, formed in Philadelphia in 1954

2 songs

Harry M. Woods, Jimmy Campbell and Reg Connelly

Harry M. Woods, 1896-1970, American; Jimmy Campbell, 1903-1967 and Reg Connelly, 1895-1963, English

1 song

Harry Nilsson

1941-1994 · American singer-songwriter · RCA Victor

1 song

Helen Reddy

1941–2020 · Australian-American singer · Capitol Records

1 song

Hoagy Carmichael

1899–1981 · Bloomington, Indiana · composer, pianist, singer and bandleader

1 song

J. J. Cale

Born John Weldon Cale · 5 December 1938, Oklahoma City · died 26 July 2013, San Diego

3 songs

Jack Payne and His Band

Jack Payne, 1899-1969 - English bandleader, the BBC’s first Director of Dance Music

1 song

Jacques Brel

1929–1978 · Belgian singer-songwriter · Philips, then Barclay

1 song

Jacques Revaux, Gilles Thibaut & Paul Anka

Music by Jacques Revaux; French lyrics by Gilles Thibaut and Claude François; English lyrics by Paul Anka

1 song

Jake Holmes

b. 28 December 1939, San Francisco · American singer-songwriter

1 song

James “Iron Head” Baker

African American work-song singer, died 1944 · recorded the song first at Sugar Land, Texas, December 1933

1 song

James “Sugar Boy” Crawford

1934-2012 · New Orleans · Checker Records

1 song

James Taylor

b. 1948 · American singer-songwriter

1 song

Janis Joplin

1943–1970 · American rock and blues singer

3 songs

Jean DuShon

1935–2019 · American jazz and R&B singer and stage actor · Detroit

1 song

Jeff Buckley

1966–1997 · American singer-songwriter

1 song

Jerry Jeff Walker

1942–2020 · American singer-songwriter · wrote and first commercially recorded the song

1 song

Jerry Ragovoy

1930-2011 - American songwriter and producer, credited here as “Norman Meade”

1 song

Jerry Ragovoy & Bert Berns

American songwriters and producers

1 song

Jimmie Davis

1899-2000, American country singer and two-term governor of Louisiana

1 song

Jimmie Davis and Charles Mitchell (credited)

Charles Mitchell, 1904-1972, American songwriter and steel guitarist

1 song

Jimmy Cliff

1944-2025 · Jamaican reggae singer and actor · St James, Jamaica

1 song

Joan Baez

b. 9 January 1941, Staten Island, New York · American folk singer

1 song

Joan Jett & the Blackhearts

American rock band · formed 1979

1 song

Jobim, Moraes and Gimbel

Jobim 1927-1994 · de Moraes 1913-1980 · Gimbel 1927-2018

1 song

John Cale

b. 1942 · Welsh musician, composer, and producer

1 song

John Ellison

b. August 11, 1941, Montgomery, West Virginia · singer, guitarist and songwriter

1 song

John Holt

1947–2014, Jamaican singer and songwriter

1 song

John Prine

1946–2020 · American singer-songwriter

1 song

Johnny Cash

1932–2003 · American country and folk singer

1 song

Johnny Darrell

1940–1997 · American country singer · United Artists Records

1 song

Johnny Nash

1940-2020 · American singer-songwriter · Houston, Texas

1 song

Joni Mitchell

b. 1943 · Canadian singer-songwriter, painter and guitarist

1 song

Jorge Ben

b. 22 March 1939, Rio de Janeiro — Brazilian singer-songwriter and guitarist

1 song

José González

Born 31 July 1978, Gothenburg; Swedish singer and guitarist of Argentine descent

1 song

Judy Collins

b. 1939 · American folk singer and Elektra recording artist

1 song

Kai Winding

1922-1983 - Danish-American jazz trombonist, Verve Records

1 song

Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie

Kansas Joe McCoy, b. 11 May 1905, Raymond, Mississippi; d. 28 January 1950, Chicago. Memphis Minnie, b. Lizzie Douglas, 3 June 1897, Tunica County, Mississippi; d. 6 August 1973, Memphis.

1 song

Kaye Ballard

1925–2019 · American singer, comedian and Broadway star

1 song

Keith Reid

1946–2023 · Procol Harum lyricist

1 song

Ken Boothe

b. 22 March 1948, Kingston, Jamaica · reggae vocalist

1 song

Kenneth Gamble, Leon Huff & Cary Gilbert

Philadelphia International songwriting team, 1970s

1 song

Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff

Kenny Gamble b. 11 August 1943; Leon Huff b. 8 April 1942; founders of Philadelphia International Records

1 song

Kris Kristofferson

1936–2024 · American songwriter, singer and actor

1 song

Kyu Sakamoto

1941-1985 · Japanese singer and actor · recorded the original in 1961

1 song

La Sonora Matancera with Nelson Pinedo

Cuban conjunto founded 1924 · Nelson Pinedo, Colombian singer, 1928-2016 · Seeco, 1953

1 song

Larry Collins

1944–2024 · American guitarist and songwriter · of The Collins Kids

1 song

Larry Weiss

b. 25 March 1941, Newark, New Jersey · American songwriter and singer

1 song

Laura Branigan

1952–2004 · American singer, Mount Kisco, New York

1 song

Led Zeppelin

Formed 1968, London · English rock band

4 songs

Leiber and Stoller

Jerry Leiber (1933–2011) & Mike Stoller (b. 1933) · American songwriting duo

1 song

Les Compagnons de la chanson

1946–1985 · French close-harmony vocal group · nine voices, three to a part

1 song

Lis Sørensen

b. 1955 · Danish singer

1 song

Little Willie John

1937-1968 · American R&B singer · King Records

2 songs

Lord Creator

Kentrick Randolph Patrick, 1935-2023 · born San Fernando, Trinidad · moved to Jamaica 1959

1 song

Lori Lieberman

b. 1951 · American singer-songwriter

1 song

Luis Demetrio

Mexican composer · wrote “¿Quién será?”, 1953

1 song

Lulu and the Lampshades

British duo · formed 2009 (later Landshapes)

1 song

Lynyrd Skynyrd

American rock band, formed in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1964

1 song

Mabon “Teenie” Hodges

1945–2014 · American guitarist and songwriter

1 song

Mack Gordon and Harry Warren

Mack Gordon, 1904–1959, lyricist · Harry Warren, 1893–1981, composer

1 song

Manfred Mann's Earth Band

English rock band · formed 1971

1 song

María Grever

1885–1951 · Mexican composer and songwriter

1 song

Mark James

1940–2024 · American songwriter

2 songs

Matthew Fisher

b. 1946 · Procol Harum organist

1 song

Mertis John Jr.

Elder brother of Little Willie John · co-writer

1 song

Michael Nesmith

1942–2021 · American songwriter, guitarist and Monkee

1 song

Mike Chapman & Holly Knight

Songwriters · credited on both the 1988 and 1989 recordings

1 song

Milli Vanilli

German-French pop duo · active 1988–1990

1 song

Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels

American rock band · Detroit · formed out of Billy Lee & the Rivieras

1 song

Muddy Waters

1913-1983 - Mississippi-born Chicago blues singer, guitarist and bandleader

1 song

Musical Youth

British reggae group, formed 1979, Birmingham, England

1 song

Nancy Sinatra

b. 1940 · American singer · Reprise Records, 1966

1 song

Natalie Imbruglia

b. 1975 · Australian singer and actress

1 song

Nazareth

Formed December 1968 in Dunfermline, Scotland - hard rock band

1 song

Neil Diamond

b. 1941 · American singer-songwriter · Bang Records, 1966–68

3 songs

Nine Inch Nails

formed 1988 · American industrial rock project of Trent Reznor

1 song

Nirvana

American rock band · formed 1987

1 song

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

Formed 1966, Long Beach, California · recorded the hit version for Liberty Records

1 song

Norman Gimbel

American lyricist, 1927-2018 · English lyric “Sway”, 1954

1 song

Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong

Whitfield 1940–2008 · Strong 1941–2023 · Motown songwriting and production team

2 songs

Numarx

Baltimore hip-hop group · formed in the early 1980s

1 song

Old Crow Medicine Show

Formed 1998 · American old-time string band

1 song

Orquesta Pedro Vía

Latin dance orchestra · recorded for Victor in New York, 1934

1 song

Otis Redding

1941-1967 - American soul singer, Stax/Volt Records

2 songs

P. P. Arnold

b. 1946, Los Angeles - American soul singer

1 song

Pablo Beltrán Ruiz

Mexican bandleader and composer, 1915-2008

1 song

Patti Page

1927–2013 · American pop singer · Mercury single, November 1950 · nine weeks at No. 1

1 song

Pee Wee King and His Golden West Cowboys

Pee Wee King, 1914–2000 · American country bandleader · recorded 2 December 1947, released January 1948 on RCA Victor

1 song

Pee Wee King and Redd Stewart

Pee Wee King, 1914–2000 · Redd Stewart, 1923–2003 · written 1946 · published by Acuff-Rose Music

1 song

Peggy Lee

1920–2002 · American singer and songwriter

1 song

Pery Ribeiro

1937-2012 · Brazilian singer · Odeon Records

1 song

Pete Seeger

1919–2014 · American folk singer, banjoist and songwriter

1 song

Peter Green

1946–2020 · British blues guitarist and songwriter

1 song

Phil Medley & Bert Berns

Bert Berns 1929–1967 · American songwriters

1 song

Pierre Delanoë

1918–2006 · French lyricist · French lyrics (English lyrics by Manny Curtis)

1 song

Pino Donaggio

b. 24 November 1941, Burano, Venice · Italian singer and film composer

1 song

Prince

1958–2016 · American musician and songwriter

2 songs

Procol Harum

English rock band · formed 1967

1 song

Ram Jam

New York rock band, 1977-1978 · built around guitarist Bill Bartlett, formerly of the Lemon Pipers

1 song

Ray Charles

1930–2004 · born Albany, Georgia · singer, pianist, architect of soul

1 song

Richard Ashcroft

b. 1971 · The Verve frontman

1 song

Richard Berry

1935–1997 · American singer and songwriter

1 song

Robert Hazard

1948–2008 · American rock singer and songwriter

1 song

Roberta Flack

1937–2025 · American soul and jazz singer

1 song

Rod Stewart

b. 1945, London - British singer

1 song

Rokusuke Ei

Wrote the Japanese lyrics of “Ue o Muite Arukō” (1961)

1 song

Roland Gerbeau

1919-2012 · French singer-songwriter

1 song

Roland Orzabal

b. 1961 · English musician and songwriter

1 song

Ron Miller and Orlando Murden

Ron Miller 1932–2007 · Orlando Murden 1925–1994 · written 1965 for Motown’s Stein & Van Stock

1 song

Ronnie Cook and the Gaylads

Bakersfield, California · Audan Record Company, 1962

1 song

Santana

American Latin rock band · San Francisco

2 songs

Sérgio Mendes & Brasil ’66

Sérgio Mendes, 11 February 1941 – 5 September 2024 — Brazilian pianist and bandleader

1 song

Shorty Long

1940–1969 · American soul singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist

1 song

Simply Red

British band formed in Manchester, 1985; fronted by Mick Hucknall

1 song

Sinéad O’Connor

1966–2023 · Irish singer and songwriter

1 song

Sir Mack Rice

1933–2016 · Detroit soul singer · Blue Rock Records, 1965

1 song

Soft Cell

English synth-pop duo · formed 1977

1 song

Solomon Burke

1940–2010 · Philadelphia-born soul singer · Atlantic Records, 1960–1968

1 song

Solomon Linda & George David Weiss

Solomon Linda (1909–1962), composer of “Mbube” · George David Weiss (American songwriter), English adaptation

1 song

Solomon Linda’s Original Evening Birds

South African Zulu a cappella group, Johannesburg · recorded for Gallo Record Company

1 song

Sonny Bono

1935–1998 · American songwriter, producer and later politician

1 song

Sonny Boy Williamson II

b. c. 1912 · d. 1965 · American blues singer and harmonica player

1 song

Soul Brothers Six

American R&B group, Rochester, New York · active 1965-1976

1 song

Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto

Getz 1927-1991 · Gilberto 1940-2023 · Verve Records, 1964

1 song

Steve Goodman

1948–1984 · American folk singer-songwriter · Chicago

1 song

Steve Young

1942–2016 · Newnan, Georgia · country-folk singer-songwriter

1 song

Stevie Wonder

b. May 13, 1950 · American singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist · Motown’s Tamla label

1 song

Stuart Gorrell

1901–1963 · American lyricist who spent his career as a banker

1 song

Talking Heads

American rock band, formed New York City 1975 · Sire Records

1 song

Tears for Fears

English pop band · formed 1981 in Bath

1 song

Terry Jacks

b. 1944, Winnipeg · Canadian singer, songwriter and producer

1 song

The Animals

Newcastle upon Tyne · British rhythm-and-blues band fronted by Eric Burdon

2 songs

The Arrows

Active 1974–1977 · British glam rock band

1 song

The Bangles

American pop-rock band · formed 1981

1 song

The Beatles

Formed Liverpool, 1960 · English rock band

2 songs

The Blues Brothers

John Belushi & Dan Aykroyd · film soundtrack released 20 June 1980 on Atlantic

1 song

The Byrds

American folk-rock band, formed Los Angeles 1964

1 song

The Communards

British synth-pop duo, active 1985 to 1988

1 song

The Cramps

Formed 1976, New York City · Lux Interior and Poison Ivy

1 song

The Dixie Cups

New Orleans vocal trio · Red Bird Records · March 1965

1 song

The Everly Brothers

Don Everly 1937–2021 · Phil Everly 1939–2014 · American close-harmony duo

2 songs

The Family

Prince side project · Paisley Park, 1985

1 song

The Greenbriar Boys

Active 1958–1970 · Bluegrass band, New York City · Vanguard Records

1 song

The Isley Brothers

American vocal group · formed 1954

1 song

The Kingsmen

American garage-rock band · formed 1959, Portland, Oregon

1 song

The Knife

Swedish electronic duo, formed Gothenburg 1999, disbanded 2014

1 song

The Limeliters

American folk trio, formed July 1959 — Lou Gottlieb, Alex Hassilev, Glenn Yarbrough

1 song

The Maytals

Jamaican vocal group formed in Kingston, 1962

1 song

The Melodians

Jamaican vocal group, formed Kingston 1963 · Brent Dowe, Trevor McNaughton, Tony Brevett

1 song

The Mighty Diamonds

Roots reggae vocal trio, formed 1969, Trenchtown, Kingston

1 song

The Monkees

American pop-rock band · formed 1966

1 song

The Paragons

Jamaican rocksteady vocal group, Kingston

1 song

The Pine Ridge Boys

Doug Spivey and Marvin Taylor, Atlanta close-harmony duo

1 song

The Righteous Brothers

American duo · Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield · recording issued 1965

1 song

The Rolling Stones

Formed 1962, London · Decca (UK) / London (US)

2 songs

The Source featuring Candi Staton

British production/songwriting trio with American singer Candi Staton (b. 13 March 1940) · Streetwave, 1986

1 song

The Specials

English 2 Tone and ska revival band, formed in Coventry in 1977

2 songs

The Stone Poneys featuring Linda Ronstadt

Formed Los Angeles, 1965 · Folk-rock trio · Capitol Records

1 song

The Temptations

Formed 1961, Detroit · Motown/Gordy · 1970 lineup: Otis Williams, Melvin Franklin, Dennis Edwards, Eddie Kendricks, Paul Williams

2 songs

The Tokens

American vocal group from Brooklyn, New York · RCA Victor

1 song

The Top Notes

American R&B vocal group · active 1960–1963

1 song

The Undisputed Truth

Formed 1970 · Detroit · Gordy/Motown

1 song

The Valentinos

Active 1952–1974 · Cleveland, Ohio · SAR Records

1 song

The Verve

English rock band · formed 1990

1 song

The Zutons

Liverpool rock band · formed 2001

1 song

Them

Belfast R&B group, formed 1964 · fronted by Van Morrison

1 song

Tina Turner

1939–2023 · American singer

2 songs

Tiny Bradshaw

1907-1958 · American bandleader, singer, pianist and drummer

1 song

Tiny Bradshaw, Howie Kay and Lois Mann

Credited on the 1951 King Records single and in the MusicBrainz work entry

1 song

Todd Duncan

1903-1998 · American operatic baritone and actor

1 song

Tom Jones

b. 1940 · Welsh singer · Decca Records

1 song

Tony Bennett

1926–2023 · American traditional-pop and jazz singer

1 song

Toots Hibbert

1942–2020; Jamaican singer and songwriter, born in May Pen, Clarendon

1 song

Traditional

Traditional African American work song · credited on the 1977 single as Traditional and Huddie Ledbetter

3 songs

Trent Reznor

b. 1965 · American musician, songwriter and producer

1 song

UB40

British reggae band, formed Birmingham 1978 · cover released 19 March 1990

2 songs

Umberto Tozzi

b. 4 March 1952, Turin · Italian singer-songwriter

1 song

Urge Overkill

Formed 1985, Chicago · American rock band

1 song

Vito Pallavicini, Vicki Wickham & Simon Napier-Bell

Italian lyric by Vito Pallavicini; English lyric by Vicki Wickham and Simon Napier-Bell

1 song

Whitney Houston

1963–2012 · American pop and R&B singer

1 song

William ‘Mickey’ Stevenson

b. 4 January 1937 · Detroit · Motown’s head of A&R

1 song

Willie Bobo

1934–1983 · American Latin jazz percussionist and bandleader

1 song

Willie Dixon

1915–1992 · American songwriter, bassist and Chess Records producer

1 song

Wilson Pickett

1941–2006 · American soul singer · Atlantic Records

2 songs

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