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While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand;
When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall; And when Rome falls—the World.

Lord Byron

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

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Topic

Rome Classical antiquity

Author

Lord Byron

Source

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1818 1810s 19th century

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Lord Byron. Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. London: John Murray, 1812-1818, canto 4, st. 145.

Current Citation

Lord Byron. "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage." Lord Byron: The Major Works, edited by Jerome J. McGann. Oxford University Press, 2008, canto 4, st. 145.

In this extremity of our city's suffering and tribulation the revered authority of laws, human and divine, was abased and all but totally dissolved, for lack of those who should have administered and enforced them, most of whom, like the rest of the citizens, were either dead or sick, or so hard pressed for servants that they were unable to execute any office; whereby every man was free to do what was right in his own eyes.

Giovanni Boccaccio

The Decameron

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Topic

The Black Death Plague

Author

Giovanni Boccaccio

Source

The Decameron

Language

Italian

Time

1353 1350s 14th century

Era

Middle Ages

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Boccaccio, Giovanni. The Decameron. c. 1353.

Current Citation

Boccaccio, Giovanni. The Decameron, translated by Wayne A. Rebhorn. W. W. Norton & Company, 2015.

Clothes are powerful things. Dressed in a tramp's clothes it is very difficult, at any rate for the first day, not to feel that you are genuinely degraded.

George Orwell

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Topic

Clothes make the man Clothing

Author

George Orwell

Source

Down and Out in Paris and London

Genre

Autobiography and memoir

Language

English

Time

1933 1930s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Orwell, George. Down and Out in Paris and London. Victor Gollancz, 1933, ch. 24.

Early impressions are hard to eradicate from the mind. When once wool has been dyed purple, who can restore it to its previous whiteness?

St. Jerome

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Topic

First impressions

Author

St. Jerome

Medium

Letter

Language

Latin

Time

403 400s 5th century

Era

Classical antiquity

Authentication Score 1

Original Citation

Saint Jerome. Letter to Laeta. c. 403, sect. 4.

Current Citation

Saint Jerome. "Letter CVII." Select Letters of Saint Jerome. Aeterna Press, 2015, sect. 4.

One life; a little gleam of time between two eternities.

Thomas Carlyle

More information about this quote

Topic

Ephemeral nature of life Life

Author

Thomas Carlyle

Source

The Hero as Man of Letters

Medium

Lecture

Language

English

Time

1840 1840s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Carlyle, Thomas. "The Hero as Man of Letters." 19 May 1840, London, England, UK. Lecture.

Beauty is a form of genius,—is higher, indeed, than Genius, as it needs no explanation. It is one of the great facts of the world, like sunlight, or spring-time, or the reflection in dark waters of that silver shell, we call the moon. It cannot be questioned. It has its divine right of sovereignty. It makes princes of those who have it.

Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray

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Topic

Beauty Genius

Speaker

Lord Henry "Harry" Wotton

Author

Oscar Wilde

Source

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Medium

Novel Magazine

Language

English

Time

1890 1890s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Wilde, Oscar. "The Picture of Dorian Gray." Lippincott's Monthly Magazine. Philadelphia, July 1890, ch. 2.

Current Citation

Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray, edited by Robert Mighall. Penguin Classics, 2003, ch. 2.

It would be an endless task to trace the variety of meannesses, cares, and sorrows, into which women are plunged by the prevailing opinion, that they were created rather to feel than reason.

Mary Wollstonecraft

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

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Topic

Oppression of women Women

Author

Mary Wollstonecraft

Source

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Genre

Political literature Feminist literature

Language

English

Time

1792 1790s 18th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects. Boston: Thomas and Andrews/London: J. Johnson, 1792, ch. 4.

Current Citation

Wollstonecraft, Mary. "A Vindication of the Rights of Women." A Vindication of the Rights of Women and A Vindication of the Rights of Men, edited by Janet Todd. Oxford University Press, 2009, ch. 4.

The relation subsisting between the white and colored people of this country, is of all other questions, the great, paramount, imperative and all commanding question for this age and nation to solve.

More information about this quote

Topic

Race relations

Speaker

Frederick Douglass

Source

The Present and Future of the Colored Race in America

Medium

Speech

Genre

Political speech

Language

English

Time

1863 1860s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Douglass, Frederick. "The Present and Future of the Colored Race in America." 15 May 1863, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brooklyn, New York City, NY, USA.

I hate and I love: why I do so you may well ask. I do not know, but I feel it happen and am in agony.

Catullus

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Topic

Love and hate Dangers of love Love

Author

Catullus

Source

Carmina

Medium

Poem

Language

Latin

Time

51 BC 50s BC 1st century BC

Era

Classical antiquity

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Catullus, Gaius Valerius. Carmina. c. 1481, no. 85.

Current Citation

Cattulus, Gaius Valerius. The Poems of Catullus, translated by Guy Lee. Oxford University Press, 2009, no. 85.

Women like not only to conquer, but to be conquered.

William Makepeace Thackeray

The Virginians

More information about this quote

Topic

Nature of women Women

Author

William Makepeace Thackeray

Source

The Virginians

Medium

Novel

Genre

Historical fiction

Language

English

Time

1859 1850s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Thackeray, William Makepeace. The Virginians: A Tale of the Last Century. Bradbury and Evans, 1 Nov. 1857 - 1 Nov. 1859.

History...is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.

Edward Gibbon

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

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Topic

Nature of history History

Author

Edward Gibbon

Source

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Genre

Historical literature

Language

English

Time

1776 1770s 18th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Gibbon, Edward. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Vol. 1, London: Strahan & Cadell, 1776, ch. 3.

Current Citation

Gibbon, Edward. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: Volumes 1-6. Vol. 1. Everyman's Library, 2010, ch. 3.

A traveller from the cradle to the grave
Through the dim night of this immortal day.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Prometheus Unbound

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Topic

The human condition

Author

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Source

Prometheus Unbound

Medium

Play

Language

English

Time

1820 1820s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Shelley, Percy Bysshe. "Prometheus Unbound." Prometheus Unbound: A Lyrical Drama in Four Acts with Other Poems. London: Charles and James Ollier, 1820, act 4, sc. 1.

Current Citation

Shelley, Percy Bysshe. "Prometheus Unbound." Percy Bysshe Shelley: The Major Works, edited by Zachary Leader and Michael O'Neill. Oxford University Press, 2009, act 4, sc. 1.

They dream in Courtship, but in Wedlock wake.

Alexander Pope

More information about this quote

Topic

Courtship and dating Marriage

Author

Alexander Pope

Source

The Wife of Bath, Her Prologue

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1704 1700s 18th century

Era

Age of Enlightenment

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Pope, Alexander. "The Wife of Bath, Her Prologue. From Chaucer." c. 1704?

Current Citation

Pope, Alexander. "The Wife from Bath from Chaucer." Alexander Pope: The Major Works, edited by Pat Rogers. Oxford University Press, 2009.

Little Fly,
Thy summer's play
My thoughtless hand
Has brushed away.

Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?

For I dance
And drink and sing,
Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.

William Blake

Songs of Experience

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Topic

Man and animals Empathy Insignificance of man

Author

William Blake

Source

Songs of Experience

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1794 1790s 18th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Blake, William. "The Fly." Songs of Innocence and of Experience Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul. London, 1794.

Current Citation

Blake, William. "The Fly." William Blake: Selected Poems, edited by Nicholas Shrimpton. Oxford University Press, 2019.

To gild refinèd gold, to paint the lily…is wasteful and ridiculous excess.

William Shakespeare

King John

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Topic

Gilding the lily Lilies Flowers Gold

Speaker

Salisbury

Author

William Shakespeare

Source

King John

Medium

Play

Genre

History (play)

Statement Type

Metaphor, analogy and simile

Language

English

Time

1616 1610s 17th century

Era

European Renaissance

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Shakespeare, William. "The Life and Death of King John." Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. London: Edward Blount and William and Isaac Jaggard, 1623, act 4, sc. 2.

Current Citation

Shakespeare, William. "King John." The Norton Shakespeare, edited by Stephen Greenblatt, et al., 3rd ed., W. W. Norton & Company, 2015, act 4, sc. 2.

I am a great eater of beef, and I believe that does harm to my wit.

William Shakespeare

Twelfth Night

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Topic

Meat Food

Speaker

Sir Andrew

Author

William Shakespeare

Source

Twelfth Night

Medium

Play

Genre

Comedy (play) Romantic comedy (play)

Language

English

Time

1602 1600s 17th century

Era

European Renaissance

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Shakespeare, William. Twelfth Night, Or What You Will. 1602, Middle Temple Hall, London, England, UK, act 1, sc. 3.

Current Citation

Shakespeare, William. "Twelfth Night." The Norton Shakespeare, edited by Stephen Greenblatt, et al., 3rd ed., W. W. Norton & Company, 2015, act 1, sc. 3.

When love is not madness,
it is not love.

Pedro Calderón de la Barca

More information about this quote

Topic

Nature of love Love

Speaker

El Tetrarca Herodes

Author

Pedro Calderón de la Barca

Source

Jealousy, the Greatest Monster

Medium

Play

Language

Spanish

Time

1637 1630s 17th century

Era

Spanish Golden Age

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Calderón de la Barca, Pedro. El Mayor Monstruo, Los Celos: Tragedia en Tres Actos [The Greatest Monster, Jealousy: Tragedy in Three Acts]. 1637.

Current Citation

Calderón de la Barca, Pedro. Pedro Calderón de la Barca: Jealousy the Greatest Monster, translated by Ann L. Mackenzie and Jose Maria Ruano de la Ruano de la Haza. Liverpool University Press, 2017.

There is a written and an unwritten law. The one by which we regulate our constitutions in our cities is the written law; that which arises from custom is the unwritten law.

Diogenes Laërtius

The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

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Topic

Custom and convention Law

Author

Diogenes Laërtius

Source

The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

Genre

Historical literature

Language

Greek

Time

400 400s 3rd century

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Plato. Quoted in Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, written by Diogenes Laertius. c. 240 AD, bk. 3, sect. 86.

Current Citation

Plato. Quoted in The Lives of Eminent Philosophers, written by Diogenes Laërtius, translated by Pamela Mensch, edited by James Miller. Oxford University Press, 2018, bk. 3, sect. 86.

Hatred is a tonic, it makes one live, it inspires vengeance; but pity kills, it makes our weakness weaker.

Honoré de Balzac

La Comédie humaine

More information about this quote

Topic

Hate Pity

Author

Honoré de Balzac

Source

La Peau de Chagrin La Comédie humaine

Medium

Novel

Language

French

Time

1831 1830s 19th century

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

De Balzac, Honoré. La Peau de Chagrin [The Wild Ass's Skin]. Paris: C. Gosselin, 1831.

Current Citation

De Balzac, Honoré. The Wild Ass's Skin, translated by Helen Constantine. Oxford University Press, 2012.

Fair Greece! sad relic of departed worth!
Immortal, though no more; though fallen, great!

Lord Byron

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

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Topic

Greece Classical antiquity

Author

Lord Byron

Source

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1818 1810s 19th century

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Lord Byron. Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. London: John Murray, 1812-1818, canto 2, st. 73.

Current Citation

Lord Byron. "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage." Lord Byron: The Major Works, edited by Jerome J. McGann. Oxford University Press, 2008, canto 2, st. 73.