Most well-known quotes from history
March 10, 2010 1:12 PM   Subscribe

Most well-known quotes from speeches, literature or historical persons.

I'm trying to put together a list of "must-know" quotes from famous speeches, famous works of literature or famous historical persons. I've done lots of searches, but there are so many sites for quotes that there are too many obscure quotes on too many topics to find the absolute most famous ones from history. I need some help!

For example:


FDR's "We have nothing to fear but fear itself."
Regan's "Tear down this wall"
MLK's "I have a dream"
Charles Dickens: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times"
Jesus: "Blessed are the..."

It can be from any period in history. Thanks so much! This is for a pop-culture quiz for high school students. (Just for fun)
posted by dealing away to Society & Culture (23 answers total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
Have you tried Bartlett's Familiar Quotations? They've been making a list for years.
posted by dortmunder at 1:20 PM on March 10, 2010 [2 favorites]


Response by poster: dortmunder: No, I'm not familiar with that work at all. Looks interesting but I'm looking for a more immediate source that I can get quotations from. I'm trying to get this done before Friday's activity. I might go to the library and see if they have it there. Thx!
posted by dealing away at 1:23 PM on March 10, 2010


See if you can borrow a copy of Lend Me Your Ears. Its a collection of famous speeches. Sure to jog your memory.
posted by shothotbot at 1:23 PM on March 10, 2010


dortmunder: No, I'm not familiar with that work at all. Looks interesting but I'm looking for a more immediate source that I can get quotations from. I'm trying to get this done before Friday's activity. I might go to the library and see if they have it there. Thx!

I can almost promise you your local library will have a copy. It's an essential reference work. If they don't they've got some messed up priorities.
posted by dortmunder at 1:24 PM on March 10, 2010


Neil Armstrong, upon setting foot on the moon: "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind."
posted by amyms at 1:27 PM on March 10, 2010


Best answer: Some of my favorites.

"Veni, vidi, vici" -Julius Caesar
"Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest." -Mark Twain
"Now we're just haggling about the price" -George Bernard Shaw
"Now we are all sons of bitches" -Kenneth Bainbridge
"It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety." -Isaac Asimov
"Better is the enemy of good." -Voltaire
posted by quin at 1:28 PM on March 10, 2010 [2 favorites]


JFK: "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."
posted by amyms at 1:28 PM on March 10, 2010


I've probably got hundreds if not thousands of snippets of important quotes like the ones you mentioned banging around in my memory, and none of them are really any more or less important than any of the others. Any one of Shakespeare's plays could give you at least a handful of quotes based on the guidelines you've given (ie, any well-known quote). Try narrowing down by subject (the most important quotes on these twenty topics, say) or genre (you've got examples from both political speeches and literature, for example).
posted by frobozz at 1:29 PM on March 10, 2010


Response by poster: Thanks amyms and quin. Those are good and helps me put together my list! Perfect! Keep them coming!
posted by dealing away at 1:29 PM on March 10, 2010


Response by poster: That's the problem frobozz. There simply is too much possibilities and my mind froze up and I just wanted to put together a list of well-known quotations that come to the top of everyone's head. Any help is appreciated.
posted by dealing away at 1:32 PM on March 10, 2010


Anne Frank, in her diary: "I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart."
posted by amyms at 1:33 PM on March 10, 2010


Best answer: From Lincoln's finest speech, the Second Inaugural:
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
And really, all of the Gettysburg Address, especially the last bit—"that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
posted by cirripede at 1:40 PM on March 10, 2010 [1 favorite]


The chanting crowd outside the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago: "The whole world is watching!" (anti-war protestors were being beaten by police, and it was broadcast on live television for 17 minutes).
posted by amyms at 1:43 PM on March 10, 2010


"I did not have sexual relations with that woman"--Bill Clinton
posted by box at 1:44 PM on March 10, 2010


Best answer: Also, Bartleby has several books of quotations online.
posted by box at 1:45 PM on March 10, 2010


"Out, damned spot!", "To be or not to be" and "Friends, Romans, countrymen" are some of the most well known ones from Shakespeare.
posted by NoraReed at 1:46 PM on March 10, 2010




Response by poster: These are all great! Keep them coming, I'm putting together the list as you post! Thx!
posted by dealing away at 2:07 PM on March 10, 2010


Best answer: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall!" --Ronald Reagan
"Give me liberty, or give me death!" --Patrick Henry
"Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears" -- Mark Antony in Julius Cesear, Shakespeare
"An eye for an eye makes the world blind"--Ghandi
"Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach." --HL Mencken
"Beauty is truth - truth, beauty - that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know" --John Keats
posted by _cave at 2:18 PM on March 10, 2010


A couple more, just because it's kinda fun...

"For fools rush in where angles fear to tread" -Alexander Pope
"Fortune favors the bold" -Virgil
"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on." -Sir Winston Churchill
"All would live long, but none would be old" -Benjamin Franklin
"Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die tomorrow." -James Dean
posted by quin at 2:22 PM on March 10, 2010


"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Leo Tolstoy (Anna Karenina).
posted by SuzB at 2:29 PM on March 10, 2010


My favourite example of this kind of thing is two phrases which separately are amongst the most quoted in the English language, and which were actually originally written in the same paragraph of John Donne's "Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions"

No man is an island. entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
posted by Jakey at 4:47 PM on March 10, 2010 [2 favorites]


Best answer: This article, "100 best first lines from a novel," yields many good ideas, and a lot of them high school students might know.
posted by TrarNoir at 7:42 PM on March 10, 2010


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