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The quote library

51,392 quotes by 1,220 writers, proverbs and scriptures, all taken from public-domain books and each one credited to the work it comes from. It is the library behind the maker’s Quotes panel: search it by word, author, topic or era, then put a quote into a video in one tap.

Search every quote in the maker How the library was made

Quotes by topic

Hand-picked sets, a few quotes each here; the full sets are in the maker’s Quotes panel.

Short and punchy

One line, big idea. Built for vertical video, where every word has to land in a glance.

  1. The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.

    Confucius Analects, XIV.29 · translated by James Legge
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  2. We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

    Oscar Wilde Lady Windermere’s Fan, Act III
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  3. The best way of avenging thyself is not to become like the wrong-doer.

    Marcus Aurelius Meditations, Book VI.6 · translated by George Long
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Stoic mornings

Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus and Seneca on doing the next right thing. Good company before the day gets loud.

  1. Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.

    Marcus Aurelius Meditations, Book VII.59 · translated by George Long
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  2. No longer talk at all about the kind of man that a good man ought to be, but be such.

    Marcus Aurelius Meditations, Book X.16 · translated by George Long
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  3. Nothing great, said Epictetus, is produced suddenly, since not even the grape or the fig is.

    Epictetus Discourses, Book I.15 · translated by George Long
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Love letters

Lines on longing, devotion and the quiet kind of love, from sonnets to proverbs.

  1. ’Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all.

    Alfred Tennyson In Memoriam A. H. H, XXVII
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  2. Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; And therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind.

    William Shakespeare A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act I Scene 1
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  3. A gentleman, nurse, that loves to hear himself talk, and will speak more in a minute than he will stand to in a month.

    William Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet, Act ii. Sc. 4
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Grief and comfort

Gentle words for loss and the long way through it. For memorials, tributes and hard weeks.

  1. What’s gone and what’s past help Should be past grief.

    William Shakespeare The Winter’s Tale, Act iii. Sc.2
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  2. Where music dwells Lingering and wandering on as loth to die, Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof That they were born for immortality.

    William Wordsworth Ecclesiastical Sonnets, Pt. iii., xliii
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  3. Ere sin could blight or sorrow fade, Death came with friendly care; The opening bud to heaven conveyed, And bade it blossom there.

    Samuel Taylor Coleridge Epitaph on an Infant
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Quotes by author

Writers with fewer quotes are in the maker’s search, under Authors.

How the library was made

Every quote comes from a book that is in the public domain: old dictionaries of quotations, collections of maxims and proverbs, essays, poems and the World English Bible. We take each quote word for word from its source, fix only spacing and punctuation, and keep the author and the work it appeared in. Where the author’s own book is available, we check the quote against it; 13,601 quotes are confirmed that way.

To stay safely clear of copyright everywhere, the library only includes writers who died in 1955 or earlier, anonymous proverbs and ancient texts, and translations published before 1929. Lines that old collections only attributed to someone are labelled “Traditionally attributed”, and quotes whose sources disagree about the author are labelled “Disputed”. Author dates and short descriptions come from Wikidata, which is free of copyright (CC0).

You are free to use any quote here in your own videos, posts and products. The texts themselves are in the public domain; crediting the author is good manners rather than a requirement.

Sources used, with the number of quotes each supplied
Source Year Licence Quotes
Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources , James Wood (1820–1901) 1893 Public domain (London: Frederick Warne, 1893; compiler d. 1901). Text via Project Gutenberg ebook #48105. 21,094
A Polyglot of Foreign Proverbs , Henry G. Bohn (1796–1884) 1857 Public domain (London: H. G. Bohn, 1857; compiler d. 1884). Text via Project Gutenberg ebook #51090. 6,833
Familiar Quotations (9th edition) , John Bartlett (1820–1905) 1905 Public domain (Boston: Little, Brown, 1905; compiler d. 1905). Text via Project Gutenberg ebook #27889. 6,295
Pearls of Thought , Maturin M. Ballou 1881 Public domain (published 1881; compiler died 1895). Text via Project Gutenberg ebook #26604. 2,342
The World's Best Poetry, Vol. X: Poetical Quotations , Bliss Carman; John R. Howard 1904 Public domain (published 1904; Carman died 1929, Howard died 1926). Text via Project Gutenberg ebook #12925. 2,325
Many Thoughts of Many Minds: A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age , Louis Klopsch 1896 Public domain (published 1896; compiler died 1910). Text via Project Gutenberg ebook #17112. 2,140
Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations , George W. Powers 1901 Public domain (published 1901; compiler died 1903). Text via Project Gutenberg ebook #15119. 1,935
World English Bible , Rainbow Missions / eBible.org (2005 text) 2005 Public domain (dedicated by its editors). Text via Project Gutenberg ebook #8294; also at ebible.org. 1,871
A Dictionary of English Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases , Thomas Preston (compiler) 1880 Public domain (London: Whittaker & Co., undated, c.1880). Text via Project Gutenberg ebook #39281. 1,577
Proverbs of All Nations, Compared, Explained, and Illustrated , Walter K. Kelly (d. 1867) 1859 Public domain (London: W. Kent, 1859; compiler d. 1867). Text via Project Gutenberg ebook #63190. 1,151
Pascal’s Pensées , W. F. Trotter (translator) 1904 Public domain translation (W. F. Trotter, first published 1904). Text via Project Gutenberg ebook #18269; the T. S. Eliot introduction in that e-text (in copyright) is excluded. Caveat: the e-text does not name the translator or his death date; it is the standard Trotter translation. 840
Life and Literature: Over Two Thousand Extracts from Ancient and Modern Writers , J. Purver Richardson 1910 Public domain in the US (published 1910). Only individual pre-1929 quotations by authors who died long ago are used; the compiler's own arrangement is not reproduced. Text via Project Gutenberg ebook #30373. 684
The Proverbs of Scotland , Alexander Hislop (1807–1865) 1862 Public domain (Glasgow, 1862; compiler d. 1865). Text via Project Gutenberg ebook #26150. 654
The Devil’s Dictionary , Ambrose Bierce (1842–c.1914) 1911 Public domain (published 1906 as The Cynic’s Word Book, 1911 as The Devil’s Dictionary; author d. c.1914). Text via Project Gutenberg ebook #972. 634
Arabian Wisdom: Selections and Translations from the Arabic , John Wortabet (translator, 1827–1908) 1910 Public domain (London: John Murray, 1910; translator d. 1908). Text via Project Gutenberg ebook #33109. 595
Aphorisms and Reflections from the Works of T. H. Huxley , Henrietta A. Huxley (selector, d. 1915) 1907 Public domain (London: Macmillan, 1907; author d. 1895, editor d. 1915). Text via Project Gutenberg ebook #35584. 550
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims , J. W. Willis Bund (1843–1928) and J. Hain Friswell (1825–1878), translators 1871 Public domain (London: Sampson Low, 1871; translators d. 1928 and 1878). Text via Project Gutenberg ebook #9105. 543
Miscellaneous Aphorisms , Oscar Wilde (1854–1900); published as by Sebastian Melmoth 1911 Public domain (London: Arthur L. Humphreys, 1911; author d. 1900). Text via Project Gutenberg ebook #33979. 498
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe , T. Bailey Saunders (translator, 1860–1928) 1893 Public domain (first published 1893; this printing New York: Macmillan, 1906; translator d. 1928). Text via Project Gutenberg ebook #33670. 481
Book of Wise Sayings, Selected Largely from Eastern Sources , W. A. Clouston 1893 Public domain (published 1893; compiler died 1896). Text via Project Gutenberg ebook #21130. 475
The Thoughts of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus , George Long (translator, 1800–1879) 1862 Public domain (translation published 1862; translator d. 1879). Text via Project Gutenberg ebook #15877. 445
The Lincoln Year Book: Axioms and Aphorisms from the Great Emancipator , Wallace Rice (compiler, 1859–1939) 1907 Public domain (Chicago: A. C. McClurg, 1907; Lincoln d. 1865, compiler d. 1939). Text via Project Gutenberg ebook #39204. 357
The Golden Sayings of Epictetus , Hastings Crossley (translator, 1846–1926) 1903 Public domain (London: Macmillan, 1903; translator d. 1926). Text via Project Gutenberg ebook #871. 343
Letters, Sentences and Maxims , Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773); prefatory note by Charles Sayle (1864–1924) 1900 Public domain (letters written 1737–1773; this compilation New York: A. L. Burt, c.1900). Text via Project Gutenberg ebook #69855. 294
The Dhammapada , F. Max Müller (translator, 1823–1900) 1881 Public domain (Sacred Books of the East vol. 10, 1881; translator d. 1900). Text via Project Gutenberg ebook #2017. 272
Daily Strength for Daily Needs , Mary Wilder Tileston 1884 Public domain (published 1884; compiler died 1934). Text via Project Gutenberg ebook #8534. 271
The Analects of Confucius (The Chinese Classics) , James Legge (translator, 1815–1897) 1893 Public domain (translation 1861, revised 1893; translator d. 1897). Text via Project Gutenberg ebook #3330. 186
Maxims for Revolutionists (from Man and Superman) , George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) 1903 Public domain (published 1903; author d. 1950, so out of copyright under life+70 since 2021). Text via Project Gutenberg ebook #26107. 169
The Tao Teh King, or the Tao and its Characteristics , James Legge (translator, 1815–1897) 1891 Public domain (Sacred Books of the East vol. 39, 1891; translator d. 1897). Text via Project Gutenberg ebook #216. 144
The Cynic’s Breviary: Maxims and Anecdotes from Nicolas de Chamfort , William G. Hutchison (translator, 1873–1907) 1902 Public domain (London: Elkin Mathews, 1902; translator d. 1907). Text via Project Gutenberg ebook #69632. 137
quote.video hand-checked starter list , quote.video 2026 Each quote verified against a public-domain edition (link recorded per quote in src/lib/quote/library.json). 108
Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar (Pudd’nhead Wilson, 1894) and New Calendar (Following the Equator, 1897) , Mark Twain (1835–1910) 1894 Public domain (published 1894 and 1897; author d. 1910). Text via Project Gutenberg ebooks #102 and #2895. 107
The Encheiridion, or Manual (in A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus with the Encheiridion) , George Long (translator, 1800–1879) 1877 Public domain (translation published 1877; translator d. 1879). Text via Project Gutenberg ebook #10661. 99
The Way to Wealth; or, “Poor Richard Improved” , Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) 1758 Public domain (written 1758; this edition London: W. & T. Darton, c.1810). Text via Project Gutenberg ebook #43855. 66