20th century

Explore 4282 quotes from the 20th century

Crime is a sociopolitical artifact, not a natural phenomenon. We can have as much or as little crime as we please, depending on what we choose to count as criminal.

Herbert L. Packer

The Limits of the Criminal Sanction

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Topic

Crime

Author

Herbert L. Packer

Source

The Limits of the Criminal Sanction

Language

English

Time

1968 1960s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Packer, Herbert L. The Limits of the Criminal Sanction. Stanford University Press, 1968, conclusion.

Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select-doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors.

John B. Watson

Behaviorism

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Topic

Blank slate

Author

John B. Watson

Source

Behaviorism

Genre

Psychological literature

Language

English

Time

1924 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Watson, John B. Behaviorism. The People's Institute Publishing Company, 1924, ch. 5.

Current Citation

Watson, John B. Behaviorism. Routledge, 2017, ch. 5.

The sanitary and mechanical age we are now entering makes up for the mercy it grants to our sense of smell by the ferocity with which it assails our sense of hearing.

Havelock Ellis

Impressions and Comments

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Topic

Noise Technological progress

Author

Havelock Ellis

Source

Impressions and Comments

Language

English

Time

1914 1910s 20th century

Authentication Score 2

Citation

Ellis, Havelock. Impressions and Comments. Constable & Company, 1914.

We don't live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other. And I tell you that the time will soon come when, if men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish.

J.B. Priestley

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Topic

Interconnectedness of all people Man as social animal

Author

J.B. Priestley

Source

An Inspector Calls

Medium

Play

Genre

Drama (play) Drama

Language

English

Time

1945 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Priestley, J. B. "An Inspector Calls." Time and the Conways and Other Plays. Penguin Classics, 1994, act 3. Originally performed in 1945, Comedy Theatre in Leningrad, Moscow, Russia, act 3.

That woman's physical structure and the performance of maternal functions place her at a disadvantage in the struggle for subsistence is obvious. This is especially true when the burdens of motherhood are upon her... As healthy mothers are essential to vigorous offspring, the physical wellbeing of woman becomes an object of public interest and care in order to preserve the strength and vigor of the race.

David J. Brewer

Muller v. Oregon

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Topic

Women's rights Women

Author

David J. Brewer

Source

Muller v. Oregon

Medium

Supreme Court opinion Legal opinion

Genre

Legal writing

Language

English

Time

1908 1900s 20th century

Authentication Score 2

Citation

Brewer, David J. United States, Supreme Court. Muller v. Oregon. United States Reports, vol. 208, 24 Feb. 1908, pp. 412-423. Justia, supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/208/412/.

It's no good trying to fool yourself about love. You can't fall into it like a soft job, without dirtying up your hands. It takes muscle and guts. And if you can't bear the thought of messing up your nice, clean soul, you'd better give up the whole idea of life and become a saint.

John Osborne

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Topic

Challenges of love Nature of love Love

Speaker

Jimmy Porter

Author

John Osborne

Source

Look Back in Anger

Medium

Play

Language

English

Time

1956 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Osborne, John. Look Back in Anger. 1956, Royal Court Theatre, London, England, UK, act 3.

Current Citation

Osborne, John. Look Back in Anger. Faber & Faber, 2015, act 3.

It is for us... To inquire constantly and persistently, when theories of national power or states' rights are propounded: "What interests are behind them and to whose advantage will changes or the maintenance of old forms accrue?" By refusing to do this we become victims of history-clay in the hands of its makers.

Charles A. Beard

An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States

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Topic

Political power Questioning authority

Author

Charles A. Beard

Source

An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States

Genre

Political literature

Language

English

Time

1935 1930s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Beard, Charles A. An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States. The Macmillan Company, 1935, introduction.

I ask you to look both ways. For the road to a knowledge of the stars leads through the atom; and important knowledge of the atom has been reached through the stars.

Arthur Eddington

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Topic

Big vs. small Stars Atoms Physics

Speaker

Arthur Eddington

Source

Stars and Atoms

Medium

Lecture

Language

English

Time

1926 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Eddington, Arthur. Stars and Atoms. The Clarendon Press, 1938, lecture 1. Originally a discourse called "Stars and Atoms." Meeting of the British Association. Aug. 1926, Oxford, England, UK.

Though I
have not been here long, I can
look up at the sky at night and tell
how things are likely to go for
the next hundred million years:
the universe will probably not find
a way to vanish nor I
in all that time reappear.

A.R. Ammons

Rapids

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Topic

Man and the universe

Author

A.R. Ammons

Source

Rapids A Coast of Trees

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1981 1980s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Ammons, Archie Randolph. "Rapids." A Coast of Trees. W. W. Norton & Company, 1981, I. 5.

Wear dark clothes after 6 p. M. Eat fresh fish for breakfast when available. Avoid kneeling in unheated stone churches. Ecclesiastical dampness causes premature gray hair. Fear tastes like a rusty knife and do not let her into your house. Courage tastes of blood. Stand up straight. Admire the world. Relish the love of a gentle woman. Trust in the Lord.

John Cheever

The Wapshot Chronicle

More information about this quote

Topic

How to live

Speaker

Leander Wapshot

Author

John Cheever

Source

The Wapshot Chronicle

Medium

Novel

Statement Type

Advice

Language

English

Time

1957 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Cheever, John. The Wapshot Chronicle. Harper & Brothers, 1957, ch. 37.

Democracy is the worst form of government. It is the most inefficient, the most clumsy, the most unpractical... It reduces wisdom to impotence and secures the triumph of folly, ignorance, claptrap, and demagogy... Yet democracy is the only form of social order that is admissible, because it is the only one consistent with justice.

Robert Briffault

More information about this quote

Topic

Critique of democracy Democracy

Author

Robert Briffault

Source

Rational Evolution (The Making of Humanity)

Language

English

Time

1930 1930s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Briffault, Robert. The Making of Humanity. London: G. Allen & Unwin Limited.

Current Citation

Briffault, Robert. Rational Evolution (The Making of Humanity). Routledge, 2019, ch. 15.

If we put together all that we have learned from anthropology and ethnography about primitive men and primitive society, we perceive that the first task of life is to live. Men begin with acts, not with thoughts.

William Graham Sumner

Folkways

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More information about this quote

Topic

Taking action Thoughts vs. actions

Author

William Graham Sumner

Source

Folkways

Genre

Sociology

Language

English

Time

1906 1900s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Sumner, William Graham. Folkways: A Study of Mores, Manners, Customs and Morals. Ginn & Company, 1906, ch. 1.

Few have heard of Fra Luca Pacioli, the inventor of double-entry bookkeeping; but he has probably had much more influence on human life than has Dante or Michelangelo.

Herbert J. Muller

More information about this quote

Topic

Accounting Unsung heroes

Author

Herbert J. Muller

Source

Uses of the Past

Genre

Historical literature

Language

English

Time

1957 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Muller, Herbert. Uses of the Past: Profiles of Former Societies. Oxford University Press, 1952, ch. 8.

Mr. Coolidge's genius for inactivity is developed to a very high point. It is far from being an indolent activity. It is a grim, determined, alert inactivity which keeps Mr. Coolidge occupied constantly. Nobody has ever worked harder at inactivity, with such a force of character, with such unremitting attention to detail, with such conscientious devotion to the task.

Walter Lippmann

More information about this quote

Topic

Taking it easy Idleness

Author

Walter Lippmann

Statement Type

Irony

Language

English

Time

1927 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Lippmann, Walter. Men of Destiny. The Macmillan Company, 1927.

Current Citation

Lippmann, Walter. Men of Destiny. Routledge, 2018.

Physicists and astronomers see their own implications in the world being round, but to me it means that only one-third of the world is asleep at any given time and the other two-thirds is up to something.

Dean Rusk

More information about this quote

Topic

Roundness of the world

Speaker

Dean Rusk

Medium

Speech

Language

English

Time

1964 1960s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Rusk, Dean. Speech to American Bar Association. 22 Oct. 1964, Atlanta, GA, USA.

So close, the Infinitesimal and the Infinite. But suddenly I knew they were really the two ends of the same concept. The unbelievably small and the unbelievably vast eventually meet, like the closing of a gigantic circle.

The Incredible Shrinking Man

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More information about this quote

Topic

The infinite The infinitesimal

Speaker

Scott Carey

Actor

Grant Williams

Source

The Incredible Shrinking Man

Medium

Film

Genre

Science fiction (film) Science fiction

Language

English

Time

1957 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

The Incredible Shrinking Man. Directed by Jack Arnold, Universal-International Pictures Co., Inc. 1957.

Perhaps one stops smoking only when one starts to love cigarettes, becoming so enamored of their charms and so grateful for their benefits that one at last begins to grasp how much is lost by giving them up, how urgent it is to find substitutes for some of the seductions and powers that cigarettes so magnificently combine.

Richard Klein

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Topic

Cigarettes

Author

Richard Klein

Source

Cigarettes Are Sublime

Language

English

Time

1993 1990s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Klein, Richard. Cigarettes Are Sublime. Duke University Press, 1993, introduction.

If a man has a talent and cannot use it, he has failed. If he has a talent and uses only half of it, he has partly failed. If he has a talent and learns somehow to use the whole of it, he has gloriously succeeded, and won a satisfaction and a triumph few men ever know.

Thomas Wolfe

More information about this quote

Topic

Talent

Author

Thomas Wolfe

Source

The Web and the Rock

Medium

Novel

Language

English

Time

1938 1930s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Wolfe, Thomas. The Web and the Rock. Harper & Sons, 1939, ch. 29.

As to the sea itself, love it you cannot. Why should you? I will never believe again the sea was ever loved by anyone whose life was married to it. It is the creation of Omnipotence, which is not of humankind and understandable, and so the springs of its behavior are hidden.

Henry Major Tomlinson

More information about this quote

Topic

Ocean and sea

Author

Henry Major Tomlinson

Source

The Sea and the Jungle

Genre

Travel writing

Language

English

Time

1912 1910s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Tomlinson, Henry Major. The Sea and the Jungle. Duckworth & Co., 1912, ch. 1.

Current Citation

Tomlinson, Henry Major. The Sea and the Jungle. Dover Publications, 2015, ch. 1.

Now, my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose... I suspect that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of, or can be dreamed of, in any philosophy.

J.B.S. Haldane

More information about this quote

Topic

Nature of the universe The universe

Author

J.B.S. Haldane

Source

Possible Worlds and Other Essays

Language

English

Time

1927 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Haldane, J. B. S. "Possible Worlds." Possible Worlds and Other Essays. Chatto and Windus, 1927.

Current Citation

Haldane, J. B. S. "Possible Worlds." Possible Worlds and Other Essays. Routledge, 2001.