20th century

Explore 4282 quotes from the 20th century

Nature teaches more than she preaches. There are no sermons in stones. It is easier to get a spark out of a stone than a moral.

John Burroughs

More information about this quote

Topic

Learning from nature Nature

Author

John Burroughs

Source

Time and Change

Genre

Nature writing

Language

English

Time

1912 1910s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Burroughs, John. "The Gospel of Nature." Time and Change. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1912.

The moon does not fight. It attacks no one. It does not worry. It does not try to crush others. It keeps to its course, but by its very nature, it gently influences.

Ming-Dao Deng

More information about this quote

Topic

The moon

Author

Ming-Dao Deng

Language

English

Time

1996 1990s 20th century

Authentication Score 0

Citation

Deng, Ming-Dao. Everyday Tao: Living in Balance and Harmony. HarperOne, 1996.

A product of the untalented, sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered.

Al Capp

On abstract art.

More information about this quote

Topic

Abstract art Art

Author

Al Capp

Source

National Observer

Medium

Newspaper

Language

English

Time

1963 1960s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Capp, Al. National Observer. 1 July 1963.

To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe in the face of the evidence the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, if unsatisfactory, conclusion.

Walter Cronkite

More information about this quote

Topic

Vietnam War War

Speaker

Walter Cronkite

Source

CBS Evening News

Medium

TV news TV program

Language

English

Time

1968 1960s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Cronkite, Walter. "We are Mired in Stalemate." CBS Evening News, created by Don Hewitt, CBS News Productions, 27 Feb. 1968.

Democracies cannot dispense with hypocrisy any more than dictatorships can with cynicism.

Georges Bernanos

More information about this quote

Topic

Downsides of democracy Democracy

Author

Georges Bernanos

Language

French

Time

1939 1930s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Bernanos, Georges. Nous Autres Francais. Gallimard, 1939.

It is this ability to bear what is unbearable and to go on living, to go on doing what one is used to doing-it is this uncanny ability that the existence of the human species is based on.

Christa Wolf

More information about this quote

Topic

Adaptability

Author

Christa Wolf

Source

Medea

Medium

Novel

Language

German

Time

1996 1990s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Wolf, Christa. Medea. Janus Press, 1996, ch. 10.

Why this cult of wilderness?... Peace is often mentioned; beauty; spiritual refreshment, whatever that means; re-creation for the soul, whatever that is; escape; novelty, the delight of something different; truth and understanding and wisdom-commendable virtues in any man, anytime; ecology and all that, meaning the salvation of variety, diversity, possibility and potentiality, the preservation of the genetic reservoir, the answers to questions that we have not yet even learned to ask, a connection to the origin of things, an opening into the future, a source of sanity for the present-all true, all wonderful, all more than enough to answer such a dumb dead degrading question as "Why wilderness?" To which, nevertheless, I shall append one further answer anyway: because we like the taste of freedom; because we like the smell of danger.

Edward Abbey

More information about this quote

Topic

Wilderness

Author

Edward Abbey

Genre

Travel writing

Language

English

Time

1971 1970s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Abbey, Edward. "How It Was." Slickrock: The Canyon Country of Southeast Utah. Sierra Club Books, 1971.

Advertising may be described as the science of arresting human intelligence long enough to get money from it.

Stephen Leacock

More information about this quote

Topic

Advertising and marketing

Author

Stephen Leacock

Source

Garden of Folly

Medium

Essay

Genre

Satire

Language

English

Time

1924 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Leacock, Stephen. Garden of Folly. S. B. Gundy/Dodd, Mead and Company, 1924, ch. 4.

Operationally, God is beginning to resemble not a ruler but the last fading smile of a cosmic Cheshire cat.

Julian Huxley

More information about this quote

Topic

God of the gaps Science and religion Existence of God Nature of God God

Author

Julian Huxley

Source

Religion without Revelation

Genre

Philosophical literature Religious literature

Language

English

Time

1927 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Huxley, Julian. Religion without Revelation. New American Library, 1957, ch. 3. Originally published by Harper & Brothers, 1927, ch. 3.

I can never look now at the Milky Way without wondering from which of those banked clouds of stars the emissaries are coming.

Arthur C. Clarke

More information about this quote

Topic

Aliens

Author

Arthur C. Clarke

Source

The Sentinel

Medium

Short story

Genre

Science fiction

Language

English

Time

1951 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Clarke, Arthur C. "Sentinel of Eternity." Ten Story Fantasy. Avon Periodicals, 1951.

I have too much respect for the idea of God to make it responsible for such an absurd world.

Georges Duhamel

More information about this quote

Topic

Problem of evil Existence of God God

Author

Georges Duhamel

Language

French

Time

1937 1930s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Duhamel, Georges. Le Desert de Bievre [The Desert of Bièvres]. Mercure de France, 1937, ch. 2.

It did not take atomic weapons to make man want peace, a peace that would last. But the atomic bomb was the turn of the screw. It has made the prospect of future war unendurable.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

More information about this quote

Topic

Nuclear weapons

Speaker

J. Robert Oppenheimer

Source

The Atomic Bomb and College Education

Medium

Speech

Genre

Commencement address

Language

English

Time

1946 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Oppenheimer, Julius Robert. "The Atomic Bomb and College Education." Commencement ceremony. 28 Feb. 1946, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.

Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom's. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own.

Nelson Algren

A Walk on the Wild Side

Buy A Walk on the Wild Side at Amazon Buy A Walk on the Wild Side at Amazon

More information about this quote

Author

Nelson Algren

Source

A Walk on the Wild Side

Medium

Novel

Statement Type

Advice

Language

English

Time

1956 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Algren, Nelson. A Walk on the Wild Side. Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1956, pt. 3.

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back. So the old bamboozles tend to persist as the new ones rise.

Carl Sagan

Buy The Demon-Haunted World at Amazon Buy The Demon-Haunted World at Amazon

More information about this quote

Topic

Con artists and charlatans

Author

Carl Sagan

Source

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

Genre

Scientific literature Philosophical literature

Language

English

Time

1995 1990s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Sagan, Carl and Ann Druyan. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. Random House, 1995, ch. 13.

In science it often happens that scientists say, "You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken," and then they actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that has happened in politics or religion.

Carl Sagan

More information about this quote

Topic

Changing one's mind Scientific progress

Speaker

Carl Sagan

Medium

Speech

Language

English

Time

1987 1980s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Sagan, Carl. "The Burden of Skepticism." CSICOP conference. 3 Apr. 1987, Pasadena, CA, USA. Keynote address.

Marriage is a wonderful invention; but, then again, so is a bicycle repair kit.

Billy Connolly

More information about this quote

Topic

Marriage

Speaker

Billy Connolly

Language

English

Time

1976 1970s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Connolly, Billy. Quoted in Billy Connolly, written by Duncan Campbell. Macmillan, 1976.

They all laughed at Christopher Columbus
When he said the world was round
They all laughed when Edison recorded sound
They all laughed at Wilbur and his brother
When they said that man could fly;
They told Marconi
Wireless was a phony-
It's the same old cry!

Read the lyrics to They All Laughed at genius.com

More information about this quote

Topic

Originality Innovation Resistance to change

Author

Ira Gershwin

Source

They All Laughed Shall We Dance

Medium

Song Musical

Language

English

Time

1937 1930s 20th century

Authentication Score 2

Citation

Gershwin, Ira. "They All Laughed." Shall We Dance. Composed by George Gershwin. Performed by Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. RKO Radio Pictures, 1937.

Why can't a woman be more like a man?
Men are so honest, so thoroughly square;
Eternally noble, historically fair;
Who, when you win, will always give your back a pat.
Why can't a woman be like that?

Professor Henry Higgins

My Fair Lady

Listen to A Hymn to Him at Amazon Listen to A Hymn to Him at Amazon

More information about this quote

Topic

Men and women Men Women

Speaker

Professor Henry Higgins

Actor

Rex Harrison

Source

A Hymn to Him My Fair Lady

Medium

Song Film

Genre

Musical comedy (film) Musical (film) Musical comedy Musical

Statement Type

Question

Language

English

Time

1964 1960s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

"A Hymn to Him." My Fair Lady. Directed by George Cuko, performed by Rex Smith, Warner Bros., 1964.

I think it only makes sense to seek out and identify structures of authority, hierarchy, and domination in every aspect of life, and to challenge them; unless a justification for them can be given, they are illegitimate, and should be dismantled, to increase the scope of human freedom.

Noam Chomsky

More information about this quote

Topic

Power relations Social hierarchy Domination and subordination

Speaker

Noam Chomsky

Medium

Interview

Language

English

Time

1995 1990s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Chomsky, Noam. "Noam Chomsky on Anarchism, Marxism and Hope for the Future." Interviewed by Kevin Doyle. Red and Black Revolution, May 1995.

The orgasm has replaced the Cross as the focus of longing and the image of fulfilment.

Malcolm Muggeridge

More information about this quote

Topic

Sex Modern life

Author

Malcolm Muggeridge

Language

English

Time

1966 1960s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Muggeridge, Malcolm. Tread Softly, for You Tread on My Jokes. Collins, 1966.