19th century

Explore 1787 quotes from the 19th century

I was walking along the road with two friends.
The sun was setting.
I felt a breath of melancholy-Suddenly the sky turned blood-red.
I stopped, and leaned against the railing, deathly tired-
looking out across the flaming clouds that hung like blood and a sword over the blue-black fjord and town.
My friends walked on-I stood there, trembling with fear.
And I sensed a great, infinite scream pass through nature.

Edvard Munch

Describing the experience that led him to paint "The Scream".

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Author

Edvard Munch

Medium

Personal journal

Statement Type

Vision

Language

English

Time

1892 1890s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Munch, Edvard. Diary entry. 22 Jan. 1892.

Becoming a father isn't difficult,
But it's very difficult to be a father.

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Topic

Fatherhood Parenting

Author

Wilhelm Busch

Source

Julchen

Medium

Poem

Language

German

Time

1877 1870s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Busch, Wilhelm. Julchen. Munich: Bassermann, 1877.

To truth only a brief celebration of victory is allowed between the two long periods during which it is condemned as paradoxical, or disparaged as trivial.

Arthur Schopenhauer

The World as Will and Idea

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Topic

Truth

Author

Arthur Schopenhauer

Source

The World as Will and Idea

Genre

Philosophical literature

Language

German

Time

1818 1810s 19th century

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Schopenhauer, Arthur. Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung [The World as Will and Imagination]. Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1819, preface.

Current Citation

Schopenhauer, Arthur. The World as Will and Representation, edited by Christopher Janaway, translated by Judith Norman and Alistair Welchman. Cambridge University Press, 2014, preface.

It is not that pearls fetch a high price because men have dived for them; but on the contrary, men dive for them because they fetch a high price.

Richard Whately

Introductory Lectures on Political Economy

More information about this quote

Topic

What the world values

Speaker

Richard Whately

Source

Introductory Lectures on Political Economy

Medium

Lecture

Language

English

Time

1831 1830s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Whately, Richard. "Introductory Lectures on Political Economy." 1831, University of Oxford, Oxford, England, UK. Lecture.

That Calvinistic sense of Innate Depravity and Original Sin, from whose visitations, in some shape or other, no deeply thinking mind is always and wholly free.

Herman Melville

More information about this quote

Topic

Original sin Human nature

Author

Herman Melville

Source

Hawthorne and His Mosses The Literary World

Medium

Essay Magazine

Language

English

Time

1850 1850s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Melville, Herman. "Hawthorne and His Mosses." The Literary World. New York: Osgood and Company, 1850.

Current Citation

Melville, Herman. "Hawthorne and His Mosses." Tales, Poems, and Other Writings. Modern Library, 2002.

There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men. Imagine a congress of eminent celebrities such as More, Bacon, Grotius, Pascal, Cromwell, Bossuet, Montesquieu, Jefferson, Napoleon, Pitt, etc. The results would be an Encyclopedia of Error.

Lord Acton

More information about this quote

Topic

Bad ideas Truth and error

Author

Lord Acton

Medium

Letter

Language

English

Time

1881 1880s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Lord Acton. Letter to Mary Gladstone. 24 Apr. 1881.

No plan of operations extends with certainty beyond the first encounter with the enemy’s main strength.

Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

More information about this quote

Topic

Battle plans Preparation War

Author

Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

Language

German

Time

1871 1870s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Von Moltke, Helmuth. "Uber Strategie." Kriegsgeschichtliche Einzelschriften. Vol. 13, Berlin: Mittler, 1891.

Current Citation

Von Moltke, Helmuth. "Plan of Operations: (1871-81)." Moltke on the Art of War: Selected Writings, translated by Daniel J. Hughes and Harry Bell. Presidio Press, 1995.

We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

To a Skylark

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Read To a Skylark at Project Gutenberg

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Topic

Melancholy Yin and yang

Author

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Source

To a Skylark

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1820 1820s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Shelley, Percy Bysshe. "To a Skylark." Prometheus Unbound, A Lyrical Drama, in Four Acts, With Other Poems. London: Charles and James Ollier, 1820, I. 88.

Current Citation

Shelley, Percy Bysshe. "To a Skylark." Percy Bysshe Shelley: The Major Works, edited by Zachary Leader and Michael O'Neill. Oxford University Press, 2009, I. 88.

Things bygone are the only things that last:
The Present is mere grass, quick-mown away;
The Past is stone, and stands for ever fast.

Eugene Lee-Hamilton

More information about this quote

Topic

Past and present The past The present Impermanence

Author

Eugene Lee-Hamilton

Source

Sonnets of the Wingless Hours

Medium

Sonnet Poem

Language

English

Time

1894 1890s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Lee-Hamilton, Eugene. "Roman Baths." Sonnets of the Wingless Hours. Chicago and Cambridge: Stone & Kimball, 1894.

Some minds improve by travel, others, rather
Resemble copper wire, or brass,
Which gets the narrower by going farther!

Thomas Hood

More information about this quote

Topic

Learning from travel Effects of travel Travel

Author

Thomas Hood

Medium

Poem

Statement Type

Metaphor, analogy and simile

Language

English

Time

1845 1840s 19th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Hood, Thomas. "Ode to Rae Wilson, Esquire." Athenæum, 12 Aug. 1837.

The Social Contract is nothing more or less than a vast conspiracy of human beings to lie to and humbug themselves and one another for the general Good. Lies are the mortar that bind the savage individual man into the social masonry.

H.G. Wells

More information about this quote

Topic

Social Contract Individual vs. the collective

Speaker

Mr. Chaffery

Author

H.G. Wells

Source

Love and Mr. Lewisham

Medium

Novel

Language

English

Time

1899 1890s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Wells, H. G. Love and Mr. Lewisham. Harper & Brothers, 1900, ch. 23.

Current Citation

Wells, H. G. Love and Mr. Lewisham, edited by Simon James. Penguin Classics, 2005, ch. 23.

Science is nothing but trained and organized common sense, differing from the latter only as a veteran may differ from a raw recruit: and its methods differ from those of common sense only as far as the guardsman's cut and thrust differ from the manner in which a savage wields his club.

T.H. Huxley

More information about this quote

Topic

Science

Author

T.H. Huxley

Source

On the Method of Zadig

Medium

Essay

Genre

Scientific literature

Language

English

Time

1880 1880s 19th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Huxley, Thomas Henry. "The Method of Zadig." 1880, Working Men's College, London, England, UK. Lecture.

The government of cities is the one conspicuous failure of the United States.

James Bryce

The American Commonwealth

More information about this quote

Topic

City politics America

Author

James Bryce

Source

The American Commonwealth

Genre

Political literature

Language

English

Time

1888 1880s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Bryce, James. The American Commonwealth. Vol. 1, London: Macmillan and Co., 1888, ch. 51.

The mid-day sun is too much for most eyes; one is dazzled even with its reflection. Be careful that too broad and high an aim does not paralyze your effort and clog your springs of action.

Learned Hand

More information about this quote

Topic

Goals Ambition

Speaker

Learned Hand

Source

Speeches of Learned Hand

Medium

Speech

Language

English

Time

1893 1890s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Hand, Learned. "Class-Day Oration." Commencement. 23 June 1893, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side.

James Russell Lowell

The Present Crisis

More information about this quote

Topic

Decisions and choices Inflection points

Author

James Russell Lowell

Source

The Present Crisis

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1845 1840s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Lowell, James Russell. "The Present Crisis." Poems. Cambridge: George Nichols, 1848. Originally published as "Verses Suggested by the Present Crisis." Boston Courier, 11 Dec. 1845.

We seem, as it were, to have conquered and peopled half the world in a fit of absence of mind.

John Seeley

More information about this quote

Topic

Imperialism

Author

John Seeley

Medium

Lecture

Language

English

Time

1881 1880s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Seeley, John. "Tendency in English History." 1881, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England, UK. Lecture.

His heart was in his garden; but his brain
Wandered at will among the fiery stars.

Frederick Goddard Tuckerman

More information about this quote

Topic

Daydreaming Imagination

Author

Frederick Goddard Tuckerman

Medium

Sonnet Poem

Language

English

Time

1860 1860s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Tuckerman, Frederick Goddard. "Sonnets: Part II." Poems. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1864.

All great art is the work of the whole living creature, body and soul, and chiefly of the soul.

John Ruskin

The Stones of Venice

More information about this quote

Topic

Art

Author

John Ruskin

Source

The Stones of Venice

Language

English

Time

1851 1850s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Ruskin, John. The Stones of Venice: The Foundations. Vol. 1, London: Smith, Edler & Co., 1851, ch. 4.

Current Citation

Ruskin, John. "The Stones of Venice." The Works of John Ruskin, edited by Edward Tyas Cook and Alexander Wedderburn. Vol. 11, Cambridge University Press, 2010, ch. 4.

Government is a trust, and the officers of the government are trustees; and both the trust and the trustees are created for the benefit of the people.

Henry Clay

More information about this quote

Topic

Citizen and state Government Political theory

Speaker

Henry Clay

Medium

Speech

Genre

Political speech

Language

English

Time

1829 1820s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Clay, Henry. Speech in Kentucky. Public dinner. 16 May 1829, Fowler's Garden, Lexington, KY, USA.

They have stabbed themselves for freedom-jumped into waves for freedom-starved for freedom-fought like very tigers for freedom! But they have been hung, and burned, and shot-and their tyrants have been their historians!

Lydia Maria Child

An Appeal on Behalf of That Class of Americans Called Africans

On American slaves.

Read An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans at Project Gutenberg

More information about this quote

Topic

American slavery Black Americans

Author

Lydia Maria Child

Source

An Appeal on Behalf of That Class of Americans Called Africans

Language

English

Time

1833 1830s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Child, Lydia Maria. An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans. Boston: Allen & Ticknor, 1833, ch. 6.