20th century

Explore 4282 quotes from the 20th century

Sort

There's nothing so dangerous as sitting still. You've only got one life, one youth, and you can let it slip through your fingers if you want to; nothing easier. Most people do that.

Willa Cather

More information about this quote

Topic

Speaker

Author

Source

Medium

Language

Time

Authentication Score 0

More information on Authentication Score coming soon.

Original Citation

Cather, Willa. "The Bohemian Girl." McClure's Magazine, Aug. 1912.

Original citation text copied to clipboard.

Current Citation

Cather, Willa. "The Bohemian Girl." The Bohemian Girl: Stories. Harper Perennial, 2009.

Current citation text copied to clipboard.

One cannot divine nor forecast the conditions that will make happiness; one only stumbles upon them by chance, in a lucky hour, at the world's end somewhere, and holds fast to the days, as to fortune or fame.

Willa Cather

More information about this quote

Topic

Author

Source

Genre

Language

Time

Authentication Score 3

More information on Authentication Score coming soon.

Citation

Cather, Willa. Willa Cather in Europe: Her Own Story of the First Journey. Alfred A. Knopf, 1956, ch. 13. Originally a notebook entry in Le Lavandou. 10 Sept. 1902.

Citation text copied to clipboard.

Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?

Bertolt Brecht

More information about this quote

Topic

Author

Source

Medium

Statement Type

Language

Time

Authentication Score 1

More information on Authentication Score coming soon.

Citation

Brecht, Bertolt. "Die Lösung [The Solution]." Die Welt, 1959.

Citation text copied to clipboard.

So I was sitting in my cubicle today, and I realized, ever since I started working, um, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that’s on the worst day of my life.

Office Space

Watch Office Space at Amazon Watch Office Space at Amazon

More information about this quote

Topic

Speaker

Actor

Source

Medium

Genre

Language

Time

Authentication Score 3

More information on Authentication Score coming soon.

Citation

Office Space. Directed by Mike Judge, Judgemental Films, 1999.

Citation text copied to clipboard.

Every civilized human being, whatever his conscious development, is still an archaic man at the deeper levels of his psyche.

Carl Jung

Buy Modern Man in Search of a Soul at Amazon Buy Modern Man in Search of a Soul at Amazon

More information about this quote

Topic

Author

Source

Genre

Language

Time

Authentication Score 0

More information on Authentication Score coming soon.

Citation

Jung, Carl. "Archaic Man." Modern Man in Search of a Soul, translated by Cary F. Baynes and William Stanley Dell. Kegen Paul, Trenche, Trubner & Co., 1933.

Citation text copied to clipboard.

Introduce the alphabet to a culture and you change its cognitive habits, its social relations, its notions of community, history and religion. Introduce the printing press with movable type, and you do the same. Introduce speed-of-light transmission of images and you make a cultural revolution. Without a vote. Without polemics. Without guerrilla resistance. Here is ideology, pure if not serene. Here is ideology without words, and all the more powerful for their absence. All that is required to make it stick is a population that devoutly believes in the inevitability of progress.

Neil Postman

Amusing Ourselves to Death

Buy Amusing Ourselves to Death at Amazon Buy Amusing Ourselves to Death at Amazon

More information about this quote

Topic

Author

Source

Language

Time

Authentication Score 3

More information on Authentication Score coming soon.

Citation

Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. Viking Penguin/Methuen Publishing, 1985, ch. 11.

Citation text copied to clipboard.

A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.

Italo Calvino

More information about this quote

Topic

Author

Source

Medium

Language

Time

Authentication Score 3

More information on Authentication Score coming soon.

Original Citation

Calvino, Italo. "Perché leggere i classici? [Why Read the Classics?]" L'Espresso, 28 June 1981.

Original citation text copied to clipboard.

Current Citation

Calvino, Italo. Why Read the Classics? Penguin Classics, 2009.

Current citation text copied to clipboard.

Listen, strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail at Amazon Watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail at Amazon

More information about this quote

Topic

Speaker

Actor

Source

Medium

Genre

Language

Time

Authentication Score 3

More information on Authentication Score coming soon.

Citation

Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Directed by Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones. Python (Monty) Pictures/Michael White Productions/National Film Trustee Company, 1975.

Citation text copied to clipboard.

A single person is missing for you, and the whole world is empty.

Philippe Ariès

There are no other quotes by this person in the Bon Mots database.

More information about this quote

Topic

Author

Source

Language

Time

Authentication Score 0

More information on Authentication Score coming soon.

Citation

Aries, Philippe. Western Attitudes Toward Death: From the Middle Ages to the Present. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974.

Citation text copied to clipboard.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Arthur C. Clarke

Also known as Clarke's Third Law.

More information about this quote

Topic

Author

Source

Medium

Language

Time

Authentication Score 3

More information on Authentication Score coming soon.

Citation

Clarke, Arthur C. "Clarke's Third Law on UFOs." Science Magazine, 19 Jan. 1968.

Citation text copied to clipboard.

A general association of nations must be formed... For the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.

Woodrow Wilson

More information about this quote

Topic

Speaker

Medium

Genre

Language

Time

Authentication Score 3

More information on Authentication Score coming soon.

Original Citation

Wilson, Woodrow. "The Fourteen Points." Congress meeting. 8 Jan. 1918, US Capitol Building, Washington, DC, USA. Address.

Original citation text copied to clipboard.

Current Citation

Wilson, Woodrow. "The Fourteen Points." Woodrow Wilson: Essential Writings and Speeches of the Scholar-President, edited by Mario R. DiNunzio. NYU Press, 2006.

Current citation text copied to clipboard.

The more money an American accumulates the less interesting he himself becomes.

Gore Vidal

Read this essay at nybooks.com

More information about this quote

Topic

Author

Source

Medium

Language

Time

Authentication Score 3

More information on Authentication Score coming soon.

Citation

Vidal, Gore. "H. Hughes." The New York Review of Books, 20 Apr. 1972.

Citation text copied to clipboard.

The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.

G.K. Chesterton

More information about this quote

Topic

Author

Source

Medium

Language

Time

Authentication Score 3

More information on Authentication Score coming soon.

Citation

Chesterton, G.K. "What's Wrong with the World." The Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton. Vol. 4, Ignatius Press, 1987, pt. 1. Originally published by Cassell, 1910, pt. 1.

Citation text copied to clipboard.