20th century

Explore 4282 quotes from the 20th century

Love is to me that you are the knife which I turn within myself.

Franz Kafka

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Topic

Dangers of love Love

Author

Franz Kafka

Source

Letters of Franz Kafka

Medium

Letter

Language

German

Time

1920 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 0

Original Citation

Kafka, Franz. Letter to Milena Jesenská. 14 Sept. 1920.

Current Citation

Kafka, Franz. "Letter to Milena Jesenská, 14 Sept. 1920." Letters to Milena, translated by Philip Boehm. Schocken, 2015.

Television. That's where movies go when they die.

Bob Hope

More information about this quote

Topic

TV vs. movies TV Movies Hollywood

Author

Bob Hope

Source

1953 Oscars Opening Monologue Oscars Opening Monologue

Medium

TV program

Language

English

Time

1953 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Hope, Bob. "Opening Monologue." Oscar Awards Ceremony. 19 Mar. 1953, Pantages Theatre, Hollywood, CA, USA.

Success to me is having ten honeydew melons and eating only the top half of each one.

Barbra Streisand

Life Magazine

More information about this quote

Topic

Success

Speaker

Barbra Streisand

Source

Life Magazine

Language

English

Time

1963 1960s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Streisand, Barbra. Quoted in "Success Is a Baked Potato." Life Magazine, 20 Sept. 1963.

It's easy to be independent when you've got money. But to be independent when you haven't got a thing-that's the Lord's test.

Mahalia Jackson

More information about this quote

Topic

Independence

Author

Mahalia Jackson

Source

Movin' On Up

Genre

Autobiography and memoir

Language

English

Time

1966 1960s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Jackson, Mahalia and Evan McLoud Wylie. Movin' On Up. Hawthorn Books, 1966, ch. 1.

Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered.

W.H. Auden

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More information about this quote

Topic

Books Collective memory

Author

W.H. Auden

Source

Reading The Dyer's Hand

Medium

Essay

Language

English

Time

1962 1960s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Auden, W. H. "Reading." The Dyer's Hand and Other Essays. Random House, 1962.

I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience.

Ronald Reagan

1984 Presidential Debates

More information about this quote

Topic

American politics Political campaigns Politics

Speaker

Ronald Reagan

Source

1984 Presidential Debates Presidential debates

Medium

Political debate

Statement Type

Political joke Joke

Language

English

Time

1984 1980s 20th century

Authentication Score 0

Citation

Reagan, Ronald. "The Second Reagan-Mondale Presidential Debate." 21 Oct. 1984, Municipal Auditorium, Kansas City, MO, USA. Presidential debate.

The blue period was not a question of color. It was an inner necessity to paint like that.

Pablo Picasso

More information about this quote

Topic

Artistic expression Self-expression Art

Speaker

Pablo Picasso

Source

Vogue

Medium

Interview Magazine

Language

English

Time

1956 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Picasso, Pablo. "Picasso." Interviewed by Alexander Liberman. Vogue, 1 Nov. 1956.

It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations... The quotations when engraved upon the memory give you good thoughts. They also make you anxious to read the authors and look for more.

More information about this quote

Topic

Quotations

Author

Winston Churchill

Source

My Early Life

Genre

Autobiography and memoir

Language

English

Time

1930 1930s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Churchill, Winston. My Early Life. T. Butterworth/C. Scribner's Sons, 1930, ch. 9.

We are stardust,
We are golden,
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden.

Joni Mitchell

Woodstock

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More information about this quote

Topic

Garden of Eden Modern life

Speaker

Joni Mitchell

Source

Woodstock

Medium

Song

Genre

Rock music

Language

English

Time

1969 1960s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Mitchell, Joni. "Woodstock." Ladies of the Canyon. Reprise Records, 1970.

I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil.

Truman Capote

More information about this quote

Topic

Editing Writing

Speaker

Truman Capote

Source

Conversations with Capote

Medium

Interview

Language

English

Time

1985 1980s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Capote, Truman. Conversations with Truman Capote, written by Lawrence Grobel. Dutton, 1985. Originally an interview with Lawrence Grobel, c. 1985.

The only valid thing in art is that which cannot be explained.

Georges Braque

More information about this quote

Topic

The mysterious Art

Author

Georges Braque

Medium

Interview

Language

Unclear

Time

1957 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Braque, George. Interviewed by John Richardson. New York Graphic Society, 1957.

Over increasingly large areas of the United States, spring now comes unheralded by the return of the birds, and the early mornings are strangely silent where once they were filled with the beauty of bird song.

Rachel Carson

Silent Spring

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Read this quote at The New Yorker

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Topic

Environmental destruction

Author

Rachel Carson

Source

Silent Spring

Language

English

Time

1962 1960s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. Houghton Mifflin, 1962, ch. 8.

In his younger days a man dreams of possessing the heart of the woman whom he loves; later, the feeling that he possesses the heart of a woman may be enough to make him fall in love with her.

Marcel Proust

In Search of Lost Time

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Read Swann's Way at Project Gutenberg

More information about this quote

Topic

Men and women Relationships

Author

Marcel Proust

Source

Swann's Way In Search of Lost Time

Medium

Novel

Genre

Modernist literature

Language

French

Time

1913 1910s 20th century

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Proust, Marcel. Du côté de chez Swann [The Way by Swann's]. Paris: Grasset, 1913.

Current Citation

Proust, Marcel. Swann's Way, edited and translated by Lydia Davis. Penguin Classics, 2004.

In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind there are few.

Shunryu Suzuki

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More information about this quote

Topic

Open-mindedness Clean slate Possibility

Author

Shunryu Suzuki

Source

Zen Mind, Beginnner's Mind

Genre

Philosophical literature Religious literature

Language

English

Time

1970 1970s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Suzuki, Shunryu. Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. Weatherhill, 1970. Originally a talk given at his Zen center in c. 1969, Los Altos, CA, USA.

The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's web.

Pablo Picasso

More information about this quote

Topic

Borrowing and creativity Creativity Artists

Speaker

Pablo Picasso

Medium

Interview

Language

French

Time

1935 1930s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Picasso, Pablo. "Conversation avec Picasso." Interviewed by Christian Zervos. Cahiers d'Art, 1935.

The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn.

T.S. Eliot

More information about this quote

Topic

Borrowing and creativity Creativity Poetry

Author

T.S. Eliot

Source

Philip Massinger

Medium

Essay

Language

English

Time

1920 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Eliot, T. S. "Phillip Massinger." The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism. Methuen & Co., 1920.

Current Citation

Eliot, T. S. "Phillip Massinger." The Sacred Wood and Major Early Essays. Dover Publications, 1998.

Almost a year ago, in company with 16 free nations of Europe, we launched the greatest cooperative economic program in history. The purpose of that unprecedented effort is to invigorate and strengthen democracy in Europe, so that the free people of that continent can resume their rightful place in the forefront of civilization and can contribute once more to the security and welfare of the world.

Harry Truman

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Read this speech at UVA's Miller Center website

More information about this quote

Topic

Marshall Plan American foreign policy International politics

Speaker

Harry Truman

Source

Inaugural Address of Harry Truman

Medium

Speech

Genre

Political speech

Language

English

Time

1949 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Truman, Harry S. "Second Inaugural Address." 20 Jan. 1949, East Portico, US Capitol Building, Washington, DC, USA.

The secret of success is to offend the greatest number of people.

George Bernard Shaw

More information about this quote

Topic

Success

Speaker

George Bernard Shaw

Source

Days with Bernard Shaw

Genre

Biography

Language

English

Time

1949 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Shaw, George Bernard. Quoted in Days with Bernard Shaw, written by Stephen Winsten. Vanguard Press, 1949.

Between "God exists" and "There is no God" lies a whole enormous field which a true sage has great difficulty in crossing. But a Russian knows only one of these two extremes and the middle between them doesn't interest him, which is why he knows nothing or very little... A good man's indifference is as good as any religion.

More information about this quote

Topic

Existence of God God

Author

Anton Chekhov

Medium

Personal journal

Language

Russian

Time

1921 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Chekhov, Anton. Diary entry. c. 1885.

Current Citation

Chekhov, Anton. The Notebooks of Anton Chekhov and Reminiscences of Chekhov, translated by S. S. Koteliansky and Leonard Woolf. University Press of the Pacific, 2002.

There's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.

Pierre Trudeau

More information about this quote

Topic

Right to privacy

Speaker

Pierre Trudeau

Language

English

Time

1967 1960s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Trudeau, Pierre. Comment in the Canadian House of Commons on the decriminalization of homosexuality. Canadian House of Commons. 22 Dec. 1967, Parliament Hill, Ottawa, Canada.