About Pocket Quotes
A small tool for broadening your knowledge of 500 of the most famous people in history — one quote, one quiz, one rabbit hole at a time.
My motivation
A 1949 book has sat on our bookshelf for over thirty years. It most likely came from my mother-in-law. The cover promises “nearly 300 vivid and inspiring life stories of great statesmen, inventors, explorers, philosophers, poets, composers, artists, and other interesting men and women — from the earliest times to our present day.”
Over the years I'd occasionally pick it up and read four or five stories. I liked them, but the medium felt limited. Reading paper text has never been as interesting to me as using a computer with the power of search engines and hyperlinks to explore as much about a subject as I'd like.
I know something about some of the 500 famous people, but only a small percentage. I wanted to broaden my own knowledge — and share the tool with anyone else who'd like to do the same.
Who created the list
I didn't. The ranking comes from Pantheon, a project from MIT that uses Wikipedia data to estimate an individual's historical significance. Pantheon has ranked over 70,000 people; the top 500 form the backbone of this app.
What's stored for each person
- Rank — 1–500 from Pantheon (1 = most searched).
- Primary & Secondary Category — one of 32 categories for filtering.
- Famous Person — with a link to Wikipedia.
- Birth / Death Year & Region — best effort from Wikipedia.
- Introduction & Known For — a short summary, intentionally brief.
- A Single Quote & All Quotes link — where available.
- Quiz Location — which quiz, if any, includes the person.
Categories at a glance
| Category | Persons | % |
|---|---|---|
| Writer | 62 | 12.4% |
| Religion | 58 | 11.6% |
| Political Leader | 52 | 10.4% |
| Monarchs | 37 | 7.4% |
| Emperor | 35 | 7.0% |
| Painter | 35 | 7.0% |
| Philosopher | 32 | 6.4% |
| Entertainers | 25 | 5.0% |
| Composer-Classical | 20 | 4.0% |
| Mathematician | 19 | 3.8% |
| Scientist | 19 | 3.8% |
| Sultan | 16 | 3.2% |
| Military Leader | 13 | 2.6% |
| Explorer | 11 | 2.2% |
| Inventor | 8 | 1.6% |
| Physician | 7 | 1.4% |
| Miscellaneous | 6 | 1.2% |
| Business Leader | 5 | 1.0% |
| Pharaoh | 5 | 1.0% |
Smaller categories (Architect, Astrologer, Astronaut, Astronomer, Athlete, Civil Rights Leader, Criminal, Economist, Historian, Humanist, Poet, Psychiatrist, Sociologist) round out the remaining slots.
About the quotes
Quotes are sourced via BrainyQuote. Each profile shows a single hand-picked quote and links out to that person's full BrainyQuote page so you can keep reading. Not every one of the 500 has quotes available — for those, you'll see a dash and a Wikipedia link instead.
Caveats
- Information was drawn primarily from Wikipedia and is limited to its accuracy.
- Some fields (birth year, region) were ambiguous and represent a best effort.
- Hyperlinks inside Wikipedia text were lost during extraction — click the person's name to jump back to the source.
- In short: don't expect perfect. Expect a tool that helps you broaden your knowledge of these 500 people.