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. 1,158,808 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
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“The economically powerful big bourgeoisie, in itself, represents an infintesimal minority of the nation. To enforce its domination, it must ensure a definite mutual relationship with the petty bourgeoisie and, through its mediation, with the proletariat.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Whoever has an opinion of his own, and honestly expresses it, will be guilty of heresy. Heresy is what the minority believe; it is the name given by the powerful to the doctrine of the weak.”
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) said by 1899 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Stories that made Christianity powerful then, weaken it now.”
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) said by 1899 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“With the sense of sight, the idea communicates the emotion, whereas, with sound, the emotion communicates the idea, which is more direct and therefore more powerful.”
Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) first seen 1943 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 29, June 10, 1943.
“The old Scythians Painted blind Fortune’s powerful hands with wings, To show her gifts come swift and suddenly, Which, if her favourite be not swift to take, He loses them forever.”
George Chapman (1559–1634) said by 1634 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Hitler: Denial is a powerful thing... I always thought I could stop any time I wanted. "If I could just get Czechoslovakia, that'll be the end of it. I'll be happy then." And then I'd get it and think, well geez, Poland's just up the road a piece and... you know the rest.”
Jon Stewart (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To be here as individuals, and yet to be able to be next to the person who is everything; in which everything is, and he is in everything. Guru Maharaji. The Lord. All powerful.”
Prem Rawat (born 1957) first seen 1978 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Divine Times (June/July 1978) Volume 7, Number 4
“The will to be stupid is a very powerful force—”
Lois McMaster Bujold (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When irony first makes itself known in a young man's life, it can be like his first experience of getting drunk; he has met with a powerful thing which he does not know how to handle.”
Robertson Davies (1913–1995) said by 1995 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He hoped that Britain and Canada would have "a healthy and cordial alliance. Instead of looking upon us as a merely dependent colony, England will have in us a friendly nation, a subordinate but still a powerful people to stand by her in North America in peace or in war.”
John A. Macdonald (1815–1891) first seen 1865 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1865, quoted on page 394 of Canadian Constitutional Development: Shown by Selected Speeches and Dispatches, with Introductions and Explanatory Notes published 1907
“We are deeply concerned, both in our country and here, of the very large number of dropouts by schoolchildren. This is a very disturbing situation, because the youth of today are the leaders of tomorrow... try as much as possible to remain in school, because education is the most powerful weapon which we can use.”
Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) first seen 1990 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech, Madison Park High School, Boston, 23 June 1990; Partly cited in Remembering Nelson Mandela's Visit To Roxbury at wgbhnews.org, December 5, 2013; and partly cited in "Nelson Mandela’s 1990 visit left lasting impr…
“We also honour the great Che Guevara, whose revolutionary exploits, including on our own continent, were too powerful for any prison censors to hide from us. The life of Che is an inspiration to all human beings who cherish freedom. We will always honour his memory.”
Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As if pity is, as he has been taught, not a helpless outcry but a powerful tide that could redeem the world...”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is not crazy to think that powerful people do some pretty horrible things. And maybe they get out of hand. Maybe it just gets away from them. It snowballs.”
Janeane Garofalo (born 1964) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Majority Report, November 10, 2004 broadcast
“The idea of the Nation is one of the most powerful anaesthetics that Man has invented. Under the influence of its fumes the whole people can carry out its systematic programme of the most virulent self-seeking without being in the least aware of its moral perversion,-in fact feeling dangerously resentful if it is pointed out.”
Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) first seen 1917 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Nationalism in the West", 1917. Reprinted in Rabindranath Tagore and Mohit K. Ray, Essays (2007, p. 465). Also cited in Parmanand Parashar, Nationalism: Its Theory and Principles in India (1996, p. 212), and Himani Bann…
“The most powerful entities on earth are not governments but the multi-national corporations that see women as their territory, indoctrinating them with their versions of beauty, health and hygiene, medicating them and cultivating their dependency in order to medicate them some more.”
Germaine Greer (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I love Brittany; I find wildness and primitiveness there. When my wooden shoes ring on this granite, I hear the muffled, dull, and powerful tone which I try to achieve in painting.”
Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) first seen 1886 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 109: in a letter to a friend, c. 1886
“We grasp at the straw of progress (a desiccated ideological twig) because we are still not ready for the Darwinian revolution. We crave progress as our best hope for retaining human arrogance in an evolutionary world. Only in these terms can I understand why such a poorly formulated and improbable argument maintains such a powerful hold over us today.”
Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) said by 2002 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Darwinian evolution may be the most truthful and powerful idea ever generated by Western Science, but if we continue to illustrate our conviction with an indefensible, unsupported, entirely speculative, and basically rather silly story, then we are clothing a thing of beauty in rags - and we should be ashamed, "for the apparel oft proclaims the man.”
Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) said by 2002 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and powerful, and to despise or, at least, neglect persons of poor and mean conditions, though necessary both to establish and to maintain the distinction of ranks and the order of society, is, at the same time, the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.”
Adam Smith (1723–1790) said by 1790 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Just look at the strengths we bring as Americans to meet these challenges. We have the most dynamic and diverse people in the world. We have the most tolerant and generous young people we've ever had. We have the most powerful military. The most innovative entrepreneurs. The most enduring values.”
Hillary Clinton (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are common-sense things that your government could do that would give Americans more opportunities to succeed. Why don’t we do it? Because powerful special interests and the tendency to put ideology ahead of political progress have led to gridlock in Congress.”
Hillary Clinton (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“She was beautiful, she was powerful; but she was no longer young. Event would soon be washing by her, the way they did everyone else; history was a wave that moved through time slightly faster than an individual life did, so that even when people had lived only to seventy or eighty, they had been behind the wave by the time they died; and how much more so now.”
Kim Stanley Robinson (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Although the ideal of free enterprise could, indeed, lend itself to the uplifting of the human condition, when it is practiced for profit alone, it becomes but a license for the powerful to further enslave the weak.”
Gerry Spence (1929–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The new and most powerful union of all will be a union of one — one man, one woman, one worker with special skills, an inquiring mind, and an independent attitude, his creativity intact, his love of life blooming. The union of one will be peopled by one man or one woman who is alive. Such a person is always sought by the intelligent manager.”
Gerry Spence (1929–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Is that a sacrilege that I praise a Holocaust movie [Schindler's List] for being entertaining? The word doesn't imply that a movie need be cheerful. In my mind, entertainment in this genre springs from characters who are brought to full life, who we care about and who are set in a powerful story. My motto: "No good movie is depressing. All bad movies are depressing.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Review of In Darkness (15 February 2012)
“Ideas are more powerful than guns.”
Tony Benn (1925–2014) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Wikinews interview with Tony Benn (8 August 2007), quote from approx 24min45 sec into interview.
“A powerful, big-stomached man came into the bunkhouse.”
John Steinbeck (1902–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In his private dealings he was just. He treated friends and strangers, the rich and poor, the powerful and weak, with equity, and was beloved by the common people for the affability with which he received them, and listened to their complaints.[...]”
Washington Irving (1783–1859) first seen 1850 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mahomet and his successors, George P. Putnam, 1850, p. 330
“Him they would not harm, Englishmen being, though infidel, yet the race of past District Officers, judges, doctors, men perhaps, in their time, more helpful than otherwise, powerful but mild.”
Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the name of Allah the all-powerful, all-merciful, all-knowing, know that it is by his holy will that we come to free the peoples of the Nile from their immemorial and most cruel bondage to the Turks and the Mamelukes, free men of Frankistan bringing freedom, respecting Islam and the tenets of the holy prophet, may his name be praised and the holy name of Allah most high exalted for ever more.”
Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Any kind of discourse which has a flavour of the British ruling class, so powerful is ancestral memory, must be strenuously avoided.”
Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The object of a religion or a philosophy is not to make men wealthy or powerful, but to make them, in the last issue, happy: that is, to fulfil their being.”
Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) said by 1953 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In fact I am such a nonentity by the standards of our culture that People magazine not only will never feature a piece about me but might also reject my attempts to subscribe to their publication on the grounds that the black-hole gravity of my noncelebrity is powerful enough to suck their entire enterprise into oblivion.”
Dean Koontz (born 1945) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Even after the dissolution of the USSR and losing a considerable part of its capabilities, today’s Russia remains one of the most powerful nuclear states.”
Vladimir Putin (born 1952) first seen 2022 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Putin waves nuclear sword in confrontation with the West", Associated Press, 24 February 2022
“The Jewish lobby is extraordinary powerful here and particularly in the industry that I work in, the music industry and in rock’n roll as they say.”
Roger Waters (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Of all the passions that inspire a man in a battle, none, we have to admit, is so powerful and so constant as the longing for honor and renown.”
Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831) said by 1831 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Boldness will be at a disadvantage only in an encounter with deliberate caution, which may be considered bold in its own right, and is certainly just as powerful and effective; but such cases are rare.”
Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831) said by 1831 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Surprise becomes effective when we suddenly face the enemy at one point with far more troops than he expected. This type of numerical superiority is quite distinct from numerical superiority in general: it is the most powerful medium in the art of war.”
Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831) said by 1831 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Europe is only powerful; India is beautiful.”
Savitri Devi (1905–1982) said by 1982 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To consider powerful souls as if they were a useful public resource is quite foreign to our customs. In a small sense it is undemocratic, for it assumes that some people really know better in a way that must seem arbitrary to most. In a large sense it is certainly democratic, in that it makes the great man serve as a man.”
Paul Goodman (1911–1972) said by 1972 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Intellect had run up against emotion. My conscience told me to run, yet some irrational and powerful force was resisting, like a weight pushing me toward the war. What it came to, stupidly, was a sense of shame. Hot, stupid shame. I did not want people to think badly of me.”
Tim O'Brien (author) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Hair on a man's chest is thought to denote strength. The gorilla is the most powerful of bipeds and has hair on every place on his body except for his chest.”
Anton LaVey (1930–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Even the most powerful human being has a limited sphere of strength. Draw him outside of that sphere and into your own, and his strength will dissipate.”
Morihei Ueshiba (1883–1969) said by 1969 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The division of the spoils between the victors will also provide employment for a powerful office, whose doorsteps the greedy adventurers and jealous concession hunters of twenty or thirty nations will crowd and defile.”
John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Marxian Socialism must always remain a portent to the historians of Opinion—how a doctrine so illogical and so dull can have exercised so powerful and enduring an influence over the minds of men, and, through them, the events of history.”
John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) first seen 1926 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The End of Laissez-faire" (1926); Full text online; Ch. 3
“It is a grand book worthy of one’s hopes of you. A most powerful piece of well organized analysis with high aesthetic qualities, though written more perhaps than you see yourself for the cognoscenti in the temple and not for those at the gate. Anyhow I prefer it for intellectual enjoyment to any recent attempts in this vein.”
John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) first seen 1942 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Abba Lerner, 1942, On The Economics of Control
“That is, by arming the negro we have added a powerful ally. They will make good soldiers and taking them from the enemy weaken him in the same proportion they strengthen us. I am therefore most decidedly in favor of pushing this policy to the enlistment of a force sufficient to hold all the South falling into our hands and to aid in capturing more.”
Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) said by 1885 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I'm not trying to sign people up to a creed, I'm much more interested in the people that disagree. These ideas are powerful but this isn't mysticism in the ordinary sense to be protected by mumblings about faith and all that. This is the real thing.”
Terence McKenna (1946–2000) first seen 1996 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: i-D magazine interview (1996)
“We know that our faith sometimes has been used as a wedge to divide us, but we also know that with a big God, with a loving and forceful God, if we unite in his name, we can finish his work on Earth. In the face of impossible odds, people who love their country can change it. With a uniting faith, with a God powerful enough to empower us, we can take those bullets out.”
Barack Obama (born 1961) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source