4.29 avg rating — 552 ratings

"C. J. Cregg tells Josh that they're worrying about the wrong thing when it comes to releasing the news that Bartlet had concealed his MS from the public.

Season 2 - Episode 20 - "The Fall's Gonna Kill You""

4.14 avg rating — 24,826 ratings

"Abbey Bartlet refers to Arsenic and Old Lace when talking about keeping lawyers in the basement.

Season # - Episode # - "TITLE""

3.91 avg rating — 237,472 ratings

"President Bartlet: "My God, King Lear is a good play"

Season 2 - Episode 15 - "Ellie""

4.02 avg rating — 46,836 ratings

"Sam Seaborne to Ainsley Hayes: "Don't you have to absolve yourself of the humiliation visited upon your family and the House of Atreus?"

Season 2 – Episode 14 – “The War at Home”"

4.18 avg rating — 3,918 ratings

"Sam to Ainsley: "You're just in your own little Euripides play over there aren't you?"

Season 2 – Episode 14 – “The War at Home”"

4.23 avg rating — 30 ratings

"Martin Sheen starred in a film by the same name as this episode of The West Wing (The War at Home, 1996) with his son, Emilio Estevez who also directed the film based on the play Home Front by James Duff.

Season 2 – Episode 14 – “The War at Home”"

4.41 avg rating — 460 ratings

"Season # - Episode # - "TITLE""

3.90 avg rating — 177 ratings

"Lionel Tribbey tells Ainsley Hayes "He is an Englishman" is from Penzance when it's actually from H.M.S. Pinafore as Sam Seaborne clears up later in the episode when he defends Ainsley. At the end of the episode Josh, Donna, Toby, Sam, and CJ decorate Ainsley's office with posters from Gilbert and Sullivan productions as a surprise and she enters her newly decorated office to a recording of "He is an Englishman" as a gesture to welcome her to the team.

Season 2 – Episode 5 – “And It’s Surely to Their Credit”"

4.03 avg rating — 1,012 ratings

"Lionel Tribbey tells Ainsley Hayes "He is an Englishman" is from Penzance when it's actually from H.M.S. Pinafore as Sam Seaborne clears up later in the episode when he defends Ainsley. At the end of the episode Josh, Donna, Toby, Sam, and CJ decorate Ainsley's office with posters from Gilbert and Sullivan productions as a surprise and she enters her newly decorated office to a recording of "He Is an Englishman!" as a gesture to welcome her to the team.

Season 2 – Episode 5 – “And It’s Surely to Their Credit”"

3.86 avg rating — 24,344 ratings

"Abbey Bartlet goes to Pennsylvania for a monument dedication to honor Nellie Bly who pioneered investigative journalism.

Season 2 – Episode 5 – “And It’s Surely to Their Credit”"

3.73 avg rating — 6,562 ratings

"Abbey Bartlet goes to Pennsylvania for a monument dedication to honor Nellie Bly who pioneered investigative journalism.

Season 2 – Episode 5 – “And It’s Surely to Their Credit”"

3.95 avg rating — 282,544 ratings

"Jed and Abbey Bartlet squabble about Jules Verne and Nellie Bly.

Season 2 – Episode 5 – “And It’s Surely to Their Credit”"

4.05 avg rating — 27,031 ratings

"Josh and Joey get President Bartlet
to weigh in on their argument over Alexis de Tocqueville.

Season 1 - Episode 21 - "Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics""

4.07 avg rating — 2,283 ratings

"Bartlet was reading this book in an episode. He reads an excerpt to C.J. about not touching a part of your body usually covered by clothing and she quips that she does what it takes to keep the press corps happy.

Season # - Episode # - "TITLE""

0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings

"Season # - Episode # - "TITLE""

3.30 avg rating — 147 ratings

"Donna tells Josh to "gather ye rosebuds" regarding making a move with Joey Lucas and it's a line written by Robert Herrick and also the title of a painting by John William Waterhouse.

Season # - Episode # - "TITLE""

3.90 avg rating — 5,963 ratings

"Sam says something like "...it wasn't a page out of Dale Carnegie..." in response to Josh's horrendous press briefing.

Season # - Episode # - "TITLE""

4.19 avg rating — 14,919 ratings

"Josh calls Donna "Lulu" and she asks who that is...

Season 4 - Episode 9 - "Swiss Diplomacy"
"

4.29 avg rating — 38,030 ratings

"Leo talks about reading the entire works of Hemingway in 30 days while at Sierra Tucson in Season 6 – Episode 19 – “Ninety Miles Away.”"

4.28 avg rating — 3,701 ratings

"In a discussion about Santos' substantiality he suggests that he could "carry around a copy of Proust." This specific title is mentioned by name but I seem to recall Bartlet using the line "remembrance of things past" in another episode.

Season 7 - Episode 1 - "The Ticket""

4.23 avg rating — 104 ratings

"Josh instructs Donna to send a memo to Senator Carrick's office saying "there's no such thing as a free launch" as a play on words, the title of the most widely known economist's book in an episode where they're hammering out the details of the budget.

Season 5 - Episode 5 - "Constituency of One""

4.17 avg rating — 4,633 ratings

"Sam does an impression of George Bailey when he goes to California to tell Will Bailey to concede because his candidate died.

Season # - Episode # - "TITLE""

3.74 avg rating — 59,139 ratings

"Season # - Episode # - "TITLE""

3.88 avg rating — 1,012,793 ratings

"Season # - Episode # - "TITLE""

3.95 avg rating — 13,597 ratings

"Will explains "the veil of ignorance" (from Rawls book) while trying to get interns to help him with remarks about the tax plan.

Season # - Episode # - "TITLE""

3.50 avg rating — 4,094 ratings

"Sam make a remark to Toby that they "need a permanent revolution" and Toby asks where he's heard that before.

Season # - Episode # - "TITLE""

really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 39,578 ratings

"Season # - Episode # - "TITLE""

4.10 avg rating — 42,083 ratings

"Season # - Episode # - "TITLE""

3.94 avg rating — 571,628 ratings

"Season # - Episode # - "TITLE""

3.68 avg rating — 198,240 ratings

"Season # - Episode # - "TITLE""

3.96 avg rating — 574 ratings

"Bartlet asks Ellie to stay over and watch Dial M for Murder.

Season 2 - Episode 15 - "Ellie""

4.38 avg rating — 85 ratings

"Bartlet says "I think she's all about Eve..."

Season # - Episode # - "TITLE"

Josh calls Ryan "Eve Harrington" after his perceived betrayal. This is a reference to the self-serving protagonist of the 1950 movie All About Eve.

Season 5 - Episode - "An Khe""

3.94 avg rating — 1,902 ratings

"Season # - Episode # - "TITLE""

4.04 avg rating — 258,629 ratings

"Sam tells CJ that his favorite author after Toby is Dickens while Senator Stackhouse reads David Copperfield during the administration's first filibuster.

Season 2 – Episode 17 – “The Stackhouse Filibuster”"

3.79 avg rating — 48,251 ratings

"Leo talks about reading the entire works of Hemingway in 30 days while at Sierra Tucson in Season 6 – Episode 19 – “Ninety Miles Away.”"

3.99 avg rating — 318,239 ratings

"Leo talks about reading the entire works of Hemingway in 30 days while at Sierra Tucson in Season 6 – Episode 19 – “Ninety Miles Away.”"

3.82 avg rating — 353,877 ratings

"Leo talks about reading the entire works of Hemingway in 30 days while at Sierra Tucson in Season 6 – Episode 19 – “Ninety Miles Away.”"

3.79 avg rating — 494,085 ratings

"Leo talks about reading the entire works of Hemingway in 30 days while at Sierra Tucson in Season 6 – Episode 19 – “Ninety Miles Away.”"

3.87 avg rating — 1,904 ratings

"CJ recommends that Bartlet read the "new Benjamin Franklin biography" in
Season 6 - Episode 4 - "Liftoff""

3.50 avg rating — 137,886 ratings

"Evelyn Lang admits to never returning a copy of this book that she snuck out of the library while she was in high school in Season 5 - Episode 17 - The Supremes

A young Bartlet's op-ed is referenced by his father, the headmaster, where he talks about banned books. He says "he banned D. H. Lawrence" and while this book isn't mentioned by title on that episode (Season 2 - Episode 22 - "Two Cathedrals") it's one of the most famous banned books.

"

3.65 avg rating — 78,037 ratings

"A young Bartlet's op-ed is referenced by his father, the headmaster, where he talks about banned books. He says "he banned Henry Miller" and while this book isn't mentioned by title it's the most famous of Miller's censored works.

Season 2 - Episode 22 - "Two Cathedrals""

3.97 avg rating — 226,068 ratings

"Donna and Josh discuss "fortune cookie wisdom" and how an advisor for the Republican nominee cherry picks quotes from famous works and the implication is that Richie supporters aren't educated well enough to understand the quotes nevermind read the books they're from.

Season # - Episode # - "TITLE""

3.96 avg rating — 42,460 ratings

"Donna and Josh discuss "fortune cookie wisdom" and how an advisor for the Republican nominee cherry picks quotes from famous works and the implication is that Richie supporters aren't educated well enough to understand the quotes nevermind read the books they're from.

Season # - Episode # - "TITLE""

4.24 avg rating — 49,253 ratings

"Donna and Josh discuss the meaning of "Good fences make good neighbors" from the poem "Mending Wall" by Robert Frost.

Season # - Episode # - "TITLE""

4.27 avg rating — 2,701 ratings

"Mr. Fedrigotti asks Josh if he can help him find this children's book because he has a 4-year-old son now and he can't find the book.

Season 3 – Episode 7 – “The Indians in the Lobby”"

3.97 avg rating — 2,838,626 ratings

"A young Bartlet's op-ed is referenced by his father, the headmaster, where he talks about banned books.

Season 2 – Episode 22 – “Two Cathedrals”"

3.81 avg rating — 1,313,379 ratings

"Leo talks about reading the entire works of Hemingway in 30 days while at Sierra Tucson in Season 6 – Episode 19 – “Ninety Miles Away.”"

4.19 avg rating — 19,859 ratings

"Helen Santos says she sounds like someone out of "The Lady of Shalott" because she's the first lady in waiting.

Season 7 - Episode 19 - "Transition""

3.59 avg rating — 259,023 ratings

"Bartlet tells Dr. Stanley Keyworth a story about Arthur Miller going back to Brooklyn and having an exchange with a friend, a hot dog vendor.

Season 3 - Episode 13 - "Night Five"
"

3.93 avg rating — 30 ratings

"Zoey, Donna, and Charlie are reading this book (referred to as "One Hundred Years Ago") and Charlie muses that not much has changed in 100 years regarding racism and white supremacy.

Season # - Episode # - "TITLE""

4.34 avg rating — 252,682 ratings

"A young Bartlet's op-ed is referenced by his father, the headmaster, where he talks about banned books.

Season 2 – Episode 22 – “Two Cathedrals”"

4.02 avg rating — 167,112 ratings

"Josh tells Sam his love life is "a moveable feast" when trying to convince Sam to leave the private sector again and come to work as his Deputy Chief of Staff.

Season 7 - Episode 19 - Transition

And of course, Leo talks about reading the entire works of Hemingway in 30 days while at Sierra Tucson in Season 6 – Episode 19 – “Ninety Miles Away.”"

4.22 avg rating — 10,148 ratings

"Toby mentions the movie version to Bartlet while hinting that he shouldn't agree to the censure.

Season 3 - Episode 10 - H. Con-172
"

4.03 avg rating — 1,051,206 ratings

"While discussing her ill-fated relationship with a congressman and Josh calls Amy Ophelia.

Season 3 Episode 13 "The Two Bartlets""

3.70 avg rating — 3,201,474 ratings

"Josh tells Donna "it's like lord of the flies in there" regarding the fan website "LemonLymen.com."

Season 3 - Episode 17 - "The US Poet Laureate""

4.20 avg rating — 780,153 ratings

"CJ tells Josh he can't post on a website and to stay away from "the cast of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" regarding the fan website "LemonLymen.com."

Season 3 - Episode 17 - "The US Poet Laureate""

3.48 avg rating — 1,644 ratings

"Bartlet and Leo discuss his attending a play based on the book in NYC.

Season 3 - Episode 21 - "The Black Vera Wang""

3.83 avg rating — 5,219 ratings

"Sam hears a similar name of a politician (congressional candidate Horton Wilde) who has been hospitalized and it makes him think of the author Thorton Wilder.

Season 4 - Episode 4 - "The Red Mass"
"

3.91 avg rating — 305,363 ratings

"CJ calls Josh Don Quixote de la Mancha in Season 4 – Episode 3 – “College Kids”

Sam refers to Will as "Sancho." in Season 4 - Episode 7 - "Election Night"

Abbey and Leo talk about Bartlet "Tilting at windmills" in the Middle East. It's an English idiom that means "attacking imaginary enemies", originating from Miguel de Cervantes' novel Don Quixote.

Season 5 - Episode 22 - "Memorial Day"

3.93 avg rating — 2,232 ratings

"Charlie asks Anthony when he started talking like Mickey Spillane. He doesn't mention a specific book, just references the famous author.

Season 4 - Episode 7 - "Election Night"
"

4.10 avg rating — 19,589 ratings

"Charlie refers to "Officer Krupke" when talking to Anthony and Anthony mishears him and asks "who's officer cupcake?" Charlie suggests he see a musical.

Season 4 - Episode 7 - "Election Night"
"

3.83 avg rating — 29,518 ratings

"Sam quotes Aristotle to Donna when talking about the "Aristotelian confluence of events" that led him to replace the recently deceased congressional candidate, Horton Wilde on the ticket:

“With respect to the requirements of art, a probable impossibility is to be preferred to a thing improbable and yet possible.”

Season 4 - Episode 7 - "Election Night""

4.09 avg rating — 939,559 ratings

"CJ mentions that she can't recall what happened with Mr. Fezziwig to make Scrooge hate Christmas when she thinks everyone exchanged gifts without her.

Season 4 - Episode 11 - "Holy Night""

4.20 avg rating — 732,205 ratings

"Bartlet mentions that they're a third of the way through an Agatha Christie story when Leo let's Stanley know he'll be snowed in for a while. They don't mention Murder on the Orient Express by name but since this is probably one of her most famous titles I went with this one.

Season 4 - Episode 11 - "Holy Night""

3.90 avg rating — 106 ratings

""Grace is but glory begun, and glory is but grace perfected."

Bartlet quotes Jonathan Edwards to Leo when he tells him he's made his decision on which bible to use for the inauguration. I'm not sure if the quote comes from one of Edwards' sermons or not but I think the title of his most famous sermon ("Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God") is also mentioned in the series. It's also the underlying theme of a lot of Bartlet's anger towards God in the "Two Cathedrals" episode in particular; the hurricane, Mrs. Landingham's untimely death, his MS, etc.

Season 4 - Episode 14 - "Inauguration: Part I""

3.98 avg rating — 43,690 ratings

"Bartlet: " 'You can't conceive, nor can I, the appalling
strangeness of the mercy of God,' says Graham Greene."

Season 2 - Episode 22 - "Two Cathedrals""

3.66 avg rating — 43,268 ratings

"Charlie calls Jean-Paul "Tartuffe" when talking to Josh in the opening scene...

Season 4 - Episode 22 - "Commencement""

3.57 avg rating — 616,034 ratings

"Josh says that his office smells like "Moby Dick's gym locker" due to a fish that was left there overnight.

Season 5 - Episode 5 - "Constituency of One" "

4.11 avg rating — 46,715 ratings

"Toby says "this is like something out of Becket" and Will corrects him by saying "You mean Sartre...Hell is other people?" which is a quote from this play by Sartre which shares its name with this episode. What Toby was thinking of we cannot be sure but I think he was supposedly confusing Samuel Beckett's "Endgame" with "No Exit" in an allusion to the beginning of the end of Bartlet's presidency as this is the episode that is a major turning point in the series. We start to see the characters move on to new roles as their focus begins to shift to Bartlet's successor.

Season 5 - Episode 20 - No Exit"

3.98 avg rating — 1,385 ratings

"Professor Lawrence Lessig, played by Christopher Lloyd, is visiting The White House to meet with a delegation from Belarus as they are working on a constitution and deciding between a presidential or parliamentary system.

Season 6 - Episode 14 - "The Wake Up Call" "

it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 4 ratings

"Mentioned by Bartlet to CJ in a conversation about rescuing astronauts with a top-secret military space shuttle whose existence Bartlet won't confirm.

Season 6 - Episode 21 - "Things Fall Apart""

4.40 avg rating — 464,501 ratings

"Josh: "You know what this is like? This is like The Godfather. When Pacino tells James Caan that he's gonna kill the cop. It's a lot like that scene, only not really."

Season 1 - Episode 20 - "Mandatory Minimums"

Toby tells Leo that Ann Stark is "a Wartime Consigliere" and Leo assures Toby that he is as well.

Season 2 - Episode 11 - "The Leadership Breakfast""

really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 126,644 ratings

"Technically the reference is to the television adaptation but it is mentioned (by Toby) nonetheless.

Season #- Episode # - "TITLE""

3.89 avg rating — 3,471 ratings

"Danny Concannon gives Charlie dating advice regarding Zoey Bartlet and says "Live with Father" couldn't have been "a real company picnic."

Season 1 - Episode 17 - The White House Pro-Am

"

3.50 avg rating — 163 ratings

"Josh asks Donna where "Jimmy Olsen" is, referring to his intern, Ryan Pierce.

Season 5"

4.62 avg rating — 144,291 ratings

"As he's reviewing text for a national address Bartlet asks "What is this, Tolkien?"

Season 5 - Episode 22 - Memorial Day"

4.19 avg rating — 4,985 ratings

"Danny Concannon says to Charlie "Listen, the Hardy Boys in the letters they're talking about, they may be
heavily armed but I wouldn't put a lot of money on their marksmanship."

Season 1 - Episode 17 - The White House Pro-Am"

3.90 avg rating — 2,053,432 ratings

"Josh says that Donna's photographer love interest is charming in a "Heathcliff on the moors" type of way.

Season 5 - Episode 22 - Memorial Day

"

3.89 avg rating — 276,611 ratings

"Jed and Abbey Bartlet squabble about Nellie Bly besting a fictitious record and he jokes about letting him know if she goes more than twenty thousand leagues under the sea.

Season 2 - Episode 5 - And It's Surely to Their Credit
"