Famous quotes

Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide

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“As for history, we are living in its ruins. And as for biographies, we are living with the consequences of all the decisions ever made in them. I tend not to read them for pleasure. It‘s not unlike carefully scrutinizing the map when one has already reached the destination.”
Scott Lynch (born 1978) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And so, from this day forth, we want all the more to let our thoughts revolve around and hover over Socrates and Christ at all times, openly taking pride that they are more alive for us than all those living today and that we listen to and love them as we do none of the living.”
Constantin Brunner (1862–1937) said by 1937 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The most general form of systems theory is a set of logical or mathematical statements about all conceptual systems. A subset of this concerns all concrete systems. A subsubset concerns the very special and very important living systems, i.e., general living systems theory.”
James Grier Miller (1916–2002) said by 2002 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Living systems are units of interactions; they exist in an ambience. From a purely biological point of view they cannot be understood independently of that part of the ambience with which they interact: the niche; nor can the niche be defined independently of the living system that specifies it.”
Humberto Maturana (1928–2021) said by 2021 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A living system, due to its circular organization, is an inductive system and functions always in a predictive manner: what happened once will occur again. Its organization, (genetic and otherwise) is conservative and repeats only that which works. For this same reason living systems are historical systems; the relevance of a given conduct or mode of behavior is always determined in the past.”
Humberto Maturana (1928–2021) said by 2021 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We are living the events which for centuries to come will be minutely studied by scholars who will undoubtedly describe these days as probably the most exciting and creative in the history of mankind. But preoccupied with our daily chores, our worries and personal hopes and ambitions, few of us are actually living in the present.”
Lawrence K. Frank (1890–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Do you think it's moral when 20 percent of the children in this country, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, are living in poverty? Do you think it is acceptable that 40 percent of African American children are living in poverty?”
Bernie Sanders (born 1941) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The five-fold difference between God, living and non-living beings is an eternal fact”
Madhvacharya (1238–1317) said by 1317 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He laid his right hand on me and said: Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last, and the living one, and I became dead, but look! I am living forever and ever, and I have the keys of death and of the Grave.”
John the Evangelist (10–98) said by 98 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“On the one hand, the negroes’ plane of living is kept down by discrimination from the side of the whites while, on the other hand, the white’s reason for discrimination is partly dependant on the negroes’ plane of living.”
Gunnar Myrdal (1898–1987) first seen 1066 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 1066
“When people would come in with non-specific problems and we never quite got to the root of a medical diagnosis, it always seemed to me they were expressing problems in living, and that one needed to look at their problems in living, and how they manifested themselves in physical problems.”
Michael Marmot (born 1945) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No living reptile has cheeks. But no living reptile has grinding teeth anything remotely resembling those of a duckbill. If the duckbills could have evolved such unreptilian teeth, why couldn't they have evolved unreptilian teeth?”
Robert T. Bakker (born 1945) first seen 1986 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Dinosaur Heresies: A Revolutionary View of Dinosaurs (1986), Longman Scientific & Technical, p. 165
“Really the best way to understand anything about dinosaurs is by looking at living animals. You look at birds and then look at the closest living ancestor of birds, which is the crocodile. If you look at characteristics that birds and crocodiles have in common, the explanation is that the trait was in the common ancestor that birds and crocodiles had at one time.”
Mark Norell (1957–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I also think that there's a way to go about things, and there's a way to do things. And I think the issue at hand needs to be addressed internally, and before we move on, because from personal experience, you know, you are living in the hood, living in the inner city, you deal with things, you deal with people dying.”
Richard Sherman (American football) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Press conference (16 September 2015), as quoted in "Video: Richard Sherman speaks passionately on Black Lives Matter" (16 September 2015), by Bob Condotta, The Seattle Times, Seattle, Washington
“Almost 80 percent of Americans are now living paycheck to paycheck.... 40 percent of Americans said they wouldn't be able to pay their bills if faced with a $400 emergency. The underlying problem isn't that Americans have been living beyond their means. It's that their means haven't been keeping up with the growing economy. Most gains have gone to the top...”
Robert Reich (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Animal training may give one the means to make a living; liberal education gives living a meaning.”
Everett Dean Martin (1880–1941) said by 1941 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Big Mama made a living at activism, a point her son liked to remind her of later. Not a tremendous living. Poverty level, in fact. But steady poverty beat the hell out of steady homelessness.”
Lisa Mason (1953–2023) said by 2023 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“An organization is a group of living human beings. The formal or official design for living never completely accounts for what the participants do. It is always supplemented by what is called the “informal structure,” which arises as the individual brings into play his own personality, his special problems and interests. Formal relations co-ordinate roles or specialized activities, not persons.”
Philip Selznick (1919–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The heart in which love and compassion for all living beings resides, can have no room for seeking after personal pleasures. O friend, take care to do no harm to any living creature; to hurt his creation is to forget the Creator.”
Khwaja Abdullah Ansari (1006–1089) said by 1089 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in Tales of the Mystic East: An Anthology of Mystic and Moral Tales Taken from the Teachings of the Saints (, 1997), p. 208
“Tradition is the living faith of the dead, traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. And, I suppose I should add, it is traditionalism that gives tradition such a bad name.”
Jaroslav Pelikan (1923–2006) first seen 1983 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Vindication of Tradition: 1983 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities (1984), p. 65.
“Before I was born, my father was priest, And built to Christ Jesus, a house for the least, To worship Jehovah, the True Living God, Who gave us His favour, and Shed forth His Blood.The Fountain is open, for you and for me, That word it is spoken, and always will be, While sinners are living, in flesh on this earth, And Jesus is praying, and giving them birth.”
Dorothy Ripley (1767–1832) first seen 1819 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Hymn From My Nativity (22 August 1819), p. 7
“A waiting list thousands of names long is ethically unacceptable. On the contrary, living transplantation is morally permissible, as well as meritorious, which today is also a simple and harmless surgical practice, just as the condition of those who find themselves living with only one kidney is practically risk-free.”
Umberto Veronesi (1925–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I enjoyed it from a very early age. When I had to make my own living after college, I decided to give doing what I enjoyed most a shot as a profession. It worked out and I’ve never had to “work” for a living since. If I hadn’t gotten so lucky, there were plenty of options open to me being, after all, a young educated white male in America.”
Clancy Brown (born 1959) first seen 2011 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with Clancy Brown (March 14, 2011)
“I call the next system economy a “living” economy, because its underlying design principles come from our understanding of healthy living systems.”
David Korten (born 1937) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Joy of living, / Living joy... Zen doctrine is null. Before I die, Here is the secret of my teaching - My staff nods in agreement. Katsu!”
Seigan Soi (1588–1662) said by 1662 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have written a few short stories for different venues, but I don’t see a big market in writing collections of short stories—at least not enough to sustain a living. Short stories are great for writing, but this is how I earn a living.”
Steve Alten (born 1959) first seen 2011 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with New HWA Member Steve Alten (December 7, 2011)
“Living creatures, sea gulls, soaring lazily and gracefully overhead. Living creatures, a group of girls, walking by, giggling and jiggling. The lazy rhythm of the waves, the sun’s warmth and the sky’s blueness. I waved my arm at it. “All this, M’bassi. All this and the stars too. Isn’t it enough without having to invent a religion and a God?”
Fredric Brown (1906–1972) said by 1972 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chapter 3, “1999” (p. 192)
“Creativity is difficult. When you are being creative, you’re living by faith. You don’t know what’s next because the created, by definition, is what’s never been before. So you’re living at the edge of something in which you’re not very confident. You might fail: in fact, you almost certainly will fail a good part of the time. All the creative persons I know throw away most of the stuff they do.”
Eugene H. Peterson (1932–2018) first seen 1993 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Contemplative Pastor (1993)
“[Erhard said his] ambition was to drive up the German standard of living until it approximated to that of the United States. That could not be achieved overnight, but it could be done, for the standard of living in the United States was determined not by the climate but by a successful economic policy.”
Ludwig Erhard (1897–1977) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the European Conference of the Association of German Industry in Trier, quoted in The Times (3 November 1952), p. 6
“COVID has changed our conversation about well being. Now what we're talking about in terms of well being, of mental wellness, physical wellness, it's very different from even a year ago. And so I think that we now have a different understanding of how we want to be living, and it's totally congruent to where we need to be living if we're going to address the climate crisis.”
Severn Cullis-Suzuki (born 1979) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the nature of living beings there are two elements—that element which impels a living creature to move in behalf or in the interests of itself, and that which prompts or prevents movement out of consideration for others. The former of these two elements is called egoism, the latter, altruism.”
J. Howard Moore (1862–1916) said by 1916 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And so anytime when we see millions of people without health care and silence too often by the church, when we see 62 million people without living wages and silence from too many of the churches, we see 140 million people living in poverty, and there not be an outcry from the church, then we actually enable greed by our apathy and absence from the public square.”
William Barber II (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“From a young age, I was instinctively drawn to stories of escape, adventure and the high seas. It wasn’t just that I was living in a society where I felt trapped, it was also because I was a reader and a dreamer. In retrospect, no matter where I grew up I probably would have dreamt of escape. But the fact that we were living behind the iron curtain fuelled that escapism.”
Kapka Kassabova (born 1973) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On her need to escape even at a young age in “THE SRB INTERVIEW: Kapka Kassabova” in Scottish Review of Books (2018 Feb 10)
“Theatre is almost the last place in the world of culture where living people meet living people.”
Yehoshua Sobol (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What inspires me these days are immigrants. Immigrants all over the world who are doing the best that they can to make a living, to survive and also to thrive. Right now there are over 244 million people who aren't living in their country of origin. This is a 40 percent increase since the year 2000. So what this tells me is that the disparities across the globe are only getting worse.”
Opal Tometi (born 1984) first seen 2016 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: An Interview with the Founders of Black Lives Matter, Ted Talks, (October 2016)
“My two sons are Korean Americans living in the states. My son living in LA, he is worrying about me coming to the states for the Oscars because you might get hurt on the street or something like that. Who knows? You’re an old woman. They’re aiming old woman. Can’t you have security guard or something? That’s terrible. He’s worrying about me just being old woman getting attacked.”
Youn Yuh-jung (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Serbs are very much attracted by the Western living standards, the standards of people. That’s why they like Germans. Because they bring their factories, they bring their plants to this country. They respect them very much. And the way of living is something that is preferable in the West than in the East, no doubt.”
Aleksandar Vučić (born 1970) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic (3 October 2018), The Washington Post
“How many times had I come and gone through the dreaded gateway? How many times had I been born and died young? And how often to the same parents? I had no idea. So much of the dust of living was in me. But this time, somewhere in the interspace between the spirit world and the Living, I chose to stay.”
Ben Okri (born 1959) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I didn’t realize that in truth what makes you a good teacher is really living your own practice, and living it so much that you request it to other people. Ultimately, everything you do that you teach someone else is something that you’re working through to teach yourself, and that practice of really digging within yourself, it feels like having your soul cracked open.”
Jessamyn Stanley (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It doesn’t matter if you’re living in a city, you’re still in nature. A lot of white environmentalists still view nature as something that they go to, instead of thinking, nature is all around me. And that means that nature is also all around these different communities of colour, even if they’re living in a city.”
Leah Thomas wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If success means living with joy, contentment, and doing great things with my talent, then failure is the opposite of success. It means not living with joy, contentment, or using my skills and gifts. Failure would also mean not pushing myself out of my comfort zone, and not daring to try new things and ideas.”
Oreoluwa Lesi first seen 2017 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: https://www.lionessesofafrica.com/blog/2017/11/1/quote-of-the-day
“the English language is a language of objectification of the living world, right? When we see that beautiful moon, we say “it” is shining; those swallows, “it” is chittering as “it” flies overhead. In English, we “it” the living world, whereas in Potawatomi that’s not possible. We use the same grammar for each other as we do for our plant and animal relatives. (Orion Magazine, 2021)”
Robin Wall Kimmerer (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Excuse me for living,/But, since I am living,/Given inches, I take yards,/Taking yards, dream of miles/And a landscape, unbounded/And vast in abandon./And you dreaming the same.”
Naomi Replansky (1918–2023) said by 2023 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When we learn to align our own energy with that of the Earth's, we will move forward effortlessly. When we slow down and allow our senses to open, great transformations occur. Living on the planet Earth becomes living in the Garden of Eden. (p 212)”
Linda Hogan (writer) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is as hugely irrelevant to us as the literary outpourings of a poet are to a bacterium living in his lower bowel. Indeed, to an even tinier mite living in the bacterium’s vacuole. It just doesn’t matter.”
Matthew Hughes (writer) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The West does not owe us a living. We have to be creative and find money to make the objectives of Rio+20 a reality. Some of the resources have to be sourced internally. We have to improve living standards by making the environment safer.”
Edith Nawakwi (1959–2025) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A call for Africa needs to fill the financing gaps. 2012
“This amendment seeks to move that fine from Sh200 to Sh 200,000 and a fine of Sh500 to Sh500,000….Which Hustler are you going to fine for removing a notice off a car for half a million Kenya Shillings are you living in Utopia are you living on Mars”?”
Millie Odhiambo (born 1966) first seen 2023 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Millie Odhiambo said, (NTV Kenya, December 8, 2023)
“It is an accent that I have often heard resonate in Naples in a different form. An enchantment in living, but combined with the implication that living has something painful for itself. There is a kind of pendulum between that enchantment and that hidden implication: you never know which one will prevail. (p. 437)”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Rwanda is still dealing with challenges including inflation, increased cost of living but the government is working around the clock to cushion citizens and anyone else living in Rwanda from these shocks.”
Yolande Makolo first seen 2023 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: RWANDA REMAINS A SAFE PLACE FOR REFUGEES, ASYLUM SEEKERS- GOV’T SPOKESPERSON KT Press (November 21, 2023)
“Living with someone probably means losing part of your own identity. Living with someone contaminates (36)”
Margo Glantz (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source