Famous lines are often shortened, modernized, or assigned to the wrong person online. This collection stays with short quotations from public-domain works and names the source so you can check the context.
12 public-domain quotationsCopy, share, or make an image
Public-domain quotation01
“To thine own self be true.”
— William ShakespeareHamlet
Public-domain quotation02
“The readiness is all.”
— William ShakespeareHamlet
Public-domain quotation03
“Forever is composed of nows.”
— Emily DickinsonPoem 690
Public-domain quotation04
“I dwell in Possibility—”
— Emily DickinsonPoem 466
Public-domain quotation05
“Well done is better than well said.”
— Benjamin FranklinPoor Richard's Almanack
Public-domain quotation06
“Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.”
— Ralph Waldo EmersonSelf-Reliance
Public-domain quotation07
“Things do not change; we change.”
— Henry David ThoreauWalden
Public-domain quotation08
“Do anything, but let it produce joy.”
— Walt WhitmanSong of the Open Road
Public-domain quotation09
“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”
— Oscar WildeThe Importance of Being Earnest
Public-domain quotation10
“There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.”
— Jane AustenEmma
Public-domain quotation11
“All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.”