How to use the random quote generator
- Pick a category: All, Inspirational, Motivational, Wisdom, Success, Life or Funny. Each button shows how many quotes it holds.
- Press New quote, or press N when no button has focus. The quote appears with its author and, where one is known, the work and year it came from.
- Copy quote puts the quote and its author on your clipboard. Share on X opens a ready-to-post draft in a new tab.
How the quote is picked
The quotes in the chosen category are shuffled with the Fisher-Yates method, using your browser's crypto.getRandomValues for unbiased random numbers, and then dealt one at a time. Every quote appears once before any repeats, and the same quote never shows twice in a row. Changing the category starts a fresh shuffle.
Where the quotes come from
The library holds 135 quotes. Most come from writers of earlier centuries and are credited to a book, speech, poem or letter, so you can look each one up. Translations are named too, such as James Legge's Analects, George Long's Meditations and Lionel Giles's Art of War. Anonymous marks a saying with no documented author, and Proverb marks a traditional saying. Popular lines with no source are left out, and famous misattributions are corrected: the line about rising every time we fall is from Oliver Goldsmith's 1762 Citizen of the World, not Confucius. Every credited work was published in 1926 or earlier. Punctuation is lightly modernized, and dashes become commas.
Worked example
Choose Funny and press New quote. One of the 28 funny quotes appears, for example “I can resist everything except temptation.” by Oscar Wilde, with the source Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892. Copy quote then puts "I can resist everything except temptation." - Oscar Wilde on your clipboard. The remaining funny quotes are dealt before that one can come up again.
Limits and edge cases
- This is a hand-checked selection in English, not a searchable database of every famous line.
- Translated lines differ from one translator to the next, so the wording here may not match the one you know. The credit names the translator.
- If you plan to print a quote, look up the source named under it first. To report a mistake, write to support@tpsworldwidellc.net.
- To keep the ones you like, paste them into the online notepad. For a daily nudge, pair a quote with the habit tracker, or try the random word generator for a writing prompt.
Frequently asked questions
Are the quotes real and correctly attributed?
Each credited quote names a work and year that you can check, and the misattributed favorites were either corrected or dropped. Where a saying has no documented author, it is labeled Anonymous or Proverb instead of being pinned on a famous name.
Why is there no Einstein, Gandhi or Churchill quote?
Many lines credited to them have no documented source. A quote is included only when we can say where it first appeared, and works published after 1926 are left out.
Can I use these quotes in a post, slide or design?
Short quotations with a credit are normal practice, and the credited works are old enough to be in the public domain in the United States. Credit the author and, for a translation, the translator. For a printed product you plan to sell, check the source first.
Will I see the same quote twice?
Not until the whole category has been shown. Each category is shuffled like a deck of cards, and a new shuffle starts after the last card or when you change category.
Sources: Quote Investigator on the origins of the Goldsmith, Edison and Shaw lines; Founders Online for Jefferson's 1825 letter; and the translations named in each credit.