20th century

Explore 4282 quotes from the 20th century

The man who is denied the opportunity of taking decisions of importance begins to regard as important the decisions he is allowed to take.

C. Northcote Parkinson

The Economist

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Topic

Abuse of power Self-importance

Author

C. Northcote Parkinson

Source

Pension Point The Economist

Medium

Essay Newspaper

Genre

Economic literature

Statement Type

Precepts and axioms

Language

English

Time

1958 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Parkinson, C. Northcote. Parkinson's Law: The Pursuit of Progress. John Murray, 1958, ch. 10. Originally published as "Pension Point" in The Economist, c. 1958.

Every generation revolts against its fathers and makes friends with its grandfathers.

Lewis Mumford

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Topic

Changing of generations Grandparents Fathers and sons

Author

Lewis Mumford

Source

The Brown Decades

Genre

Historical literature

Language

English

Time

1931 1930s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Mumford, Lewis. The Brown Decades: A Study of the Arts in America. Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1931.

A drug is neither moral or immoral-it's a chemical compound. The compound itself is not a menace to society until a human being treats it as if consumption bestowed a temporary licence to act like an asshole.

Frank Zappa

More information about this quote

Topic

Drugs

Author

Frank Zappa

Genre

Autobiography and memoir

Language

English

Time

1989 1980s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Zappa, Frank and Peter Occhiogrosso. The Real Frank Zappa Book. Poseidon Press/Picador, 1989, ch. 17.

"Thou shalt not" might reach the head, but it takes "Once upon a time" to reach the heart.

Philip Pullman

More information about this quote

Topic

Stories

Author

Philip Pullman

Source

Independent

Medium

Newspaper

Language

English

Time

1996 1990s 20th century

Authentication Score 2

Citation

Pullman, Philip. "Opinion: The moral's in the story, not the stern lecture." The Independent, 17 July 1996.

That humanity at large will ever be able to dispense with Artificial Paradises seems very unlikely. Most men and women lead lives at the worst so painful, at the best so monotonous, poor and limited that the urge to escape, the longing to transcend themselves if only for a few moments, is and has always been one of the principal appetites of the soul.

Aldous Huxley

More information about this quote

Topic

Drugs Escape

Author

Aldous Huxley

Source

The Doors of Perception

Genre

Autobiography and memoir

Language

English

Time

1954 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Huxley, Aldous. The Doors of Perception. Chatto & Windus/Harper & Row, 1954.

Summer time and the livin' is easy,
Fish are jumpin' and the cotton is high.
Oh, yo' daddy's rich and yo' ma' is good-lookin',
So hush, little baby, don' yo' cry.

Ira Gershwin

Summertime

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Read the lyrics to Summertime

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Topic

Summer Seasons

Author

Ira Gershwin

Source

Summertime

Medium

Song

Genre

Great American songbook

Language

English

Time

1935 1930s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Gershwin, Ira and DuBose Heyward. "Summertime." Porgy and Bess. Composed by George Gershwin. 1935, Colonial Theatre, Boston, MA, USA.

Let me tell you something kid. Everybody gets one chance to do something great. Most people never take the chance, either cause they're too scared, or they don't recognize it when it spits on their shoes. This is your big chance and you shouldn't let it go by.

The Sandlot

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Topic

Facing one's fears Going for it Greatness

Speaker

The Babe

Actor

Art LaFleur

Source

The Sandlot

Medium

Film

Genre

Coming of age (film) Sports (film) Coming of age Sports

Language

English

Time

1993 1990s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

The Sandlot. Directed by David Mickey Evans, Island World, 1993.

The government ought not to use evidence obtained and only obtainable, by a criminal act...for my part I think it a less evil that some criminals could escape than that, the Government should play an ignoble part.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Olmstead v. United States

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Topic

Fourth Amendment Constitutional law

Author

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Source

Olmstead v. United States

Medium

Supreme Court opinion Legal opinion

Genre

Legal writing

Language

English

Time

1928 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 2

Citation

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Jr. United States, Supreme Court. Olmstead v. United States. United States Reports, vol. 277, 4 June 1928, pp. 438-485. Justia, supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/277/438/.

Disinterested intellectual curiosity is the life-blood of real civilization.

G.M. Trevelyan

More information about this quote

Topic

Curiosity Progress

Author

G.M. Trevelyan

Source

English Social History

Genre

Historical literature

Language

English

Time

1942 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Trevelyan, George Macaulay. English Social History: A Survey of Six Centuries Chaucer to Queen Victoria. Longmans, Green and Company, 1942, introduction.

Myth is the secret opening through which the inexhautible energies of the cosmos pour into human cultural manifestation. Religions, philosophies, arts, the social forms of primitive and historic man, prime discoveries in science and technology, the very dreams that blister sleep, boil up from the basic, magic ring of myth.

Joseph Campbell (writer)

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Topic

Myth

Author

Joseph Campbell (writer)

Source

The Hero with a Thousand Faces

Genre

Sociology

Statement Type

Definition

Language

English

Time

1949 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Pantheon Books, 1949, prologue.

It takes no compromising to give people their rights... It takes no money to respect the individual. It takes no political deal to give people freedom. It takes no survey to remove repression.

Harvey Milk

More information about this quote

Topic

Human rights Oppression

Speaker

Harvey Milk

Language

English

Time

1973 1970s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Milk, Harvey. Speech to the Joint International Longshoremen & Warehousemen's Union of San Francisco and to the Lafayette Club. 30 Sept. 1973, San Francisco, CA, USA.

Fear of serious injury alone cannot justify suppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burned women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.

Louis Brandeis

Whitney v. California

Read this opinion at supreme.justia.com.

More information about this quote

Topic

Freedom of speech and expression

Author

Louis Brandeis

Source

Whitney v. California

Medium

Supreme Court opinion Legal opinion

Genre

Legal writing

Language

English

Time

1927 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Brandeis, Louis. United States, Supreme Court. Whitney v. California. United States Reports, vol. 274, 16 May 1927, pp. 357-379. Justia, supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/274/357/.

But when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas—that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out. That at any rate, is the theory of our Constitution. It is an experiment, as all life is an experiment.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Abrams v. United States

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More information about this quote

Topic

Free exchange of ideas

Author

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Source

Abrams v. United States

Medium

Supreme Court opinion Legal opinion

Genre

Legal writing

Language

English

Time

1919 1910s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Jr. United States, Supreme Court. Abrams v. United States. United States Report, vol. 250, 10 Nov. 1919, pp. 616-631. Justia, supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/250/616/.

I have come to the borders of sleep,
The unfathomable deep
Forest where all must lose
Their way.

Edward Thomas

More information about this quote

Topic

Sleep

Author

Edward Thomas

Source

Lights Out

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1917 1910s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Thomas, Edward. "Lights Out." Poems. Henry Holt, 1917, I. 1.

Current Citation

Thomas, Edward. "Lights Out." Selected Poems of Edward Thomas. Faber & Faber, 2011, I. 1.

The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.

Eric Hoffer

More information about this quote

Topic

Gratitude

Author

Eric Hoffer

Source

Reflections on the Human Condition

Genre

Philosophical literature

Language

English

Time

1973 1970s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Hoffer, Eric. Reflections on the Human Condition. Harper & Row, 1973, no. 172.

"I beseech ye in the bowels of Christ, think that ye may be mistaken." I should like to have that written over the portals of every church, every school, and every court house, and, may I say, of every legislative body in the United States. I should like to have every court begin, "I beseech ye in the bowels of Christ, think that we may be mistaken."

Learned Hand

More information about this quote

Topic

Intellectual humility Questioning one's beliefs

Speaker

Learned Hand

Source

Morals in Public Life

Medium

Speech

Language

English

Time

1951 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Hand, Learned. "Morals in Public Life." Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare. 28 June 1951, Washington, DC, USA. Testimony.

Vietnam was the first war ever fought without any censorship. Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind.

William C. Westmoreland

More information about this quote

Topic

Vietnam War Censorship

Speaker

William C. Westmoreland

Language

English

Time

1982 1980s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Westmoreland, William C. Quoted in Washington Post. 19 March 1982.

History says, Don't hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.

Seamus Heaney

More information about this quote

Topic

Hope Political progress Progress

Author

Seamus Heaney

Source

The Cure at Troy

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1990 1990s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Heaney, Seamus. The Cure at Troy: A Version of Sophocles - Philoctetes. Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1991.

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

More information about this quote

Topic

Inevitability of death Death

Author

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Source

Dirge Without Music

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1928 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Millay, Edna St. Vincent. "Dirge Without Music." The Buck in the Snow, and Other Poems. Harper & Brothers, 1928, st. 1.

The worker is the slave of capitalist society, the female worker is the slave of that slave.

James Connolly

More information about this quote

Topic

Oppression of women Men and women Anti-capitalism Capitalism

Author

James Connolly

Source

The Re-Conquest of Ireland

Medium

Pamphlet

Genre

Political literature

Language

English

Time

1915 1910s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Connolly, James. Labour in Ireland: Labour in Irish History: the Re-conquest of Ireland. Dublin: Irish Workers' Cooperative Society, 1915.