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
EnglishItalianoPolskiעבריתFrançaisPortuguêsفارسیEspañol中文РусскийDeutschالعربيةहिन्दी日本語ΕλληνικάLatina
Life
LoveFriendshipHappinessHopeFearCourageDeathLifeTimeWarPeaceFreedomTruthWisdomKnowledgeScienceArtMusicNatureMoneyWorkPowerGodBeautyLaughterFamilySuccess and failureChangeDreamsBooks and reading
“Now let us sing — Long live the king, And Gilpin, long live he; And, when he next doth ride abroad, May I be there to see!”
William Cowper (1731–1800) said by 1800 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Do you know what an anthropologist is?” “Uh, I am sorry, ma’am—Margaret.” “It’s simpler than it sounds. An anthropologist is a scientist who studies how people live together.” Thorby looked doubtful. “This is a science?” “Sometimes I wonder. Actually, Thorby, it is a complicated study, because the patterns that men work out to live together seem unlimited.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It may be better to be a live jackal than a dead lion, but it is better still to be a live lion. And usually easier.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You live and learn. Or you don't live long.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Live. Breathe. It is not fear that we need to live by, but joy, hope. Inside you, in your ocean, maybe it seems barren; maybe it feels as if there is no hope, no kindness, no reason for happiness. But deep within you, undeniably, something rumbles, cries out, wants to be born. Allow the joy to come forward. Allow the hope to exist.”
Prem Rawat (born 1957) first seen 1990 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Madrid, Spain September 1990
“Long live the Cuban revolution! Long live Comrade Fidel Castro!”
Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We must eat to live and live to eat.”
Henry Fielding (1707–1754) said by 1754 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The ability of so many people to live comfortably with the idea of capital punishment is perhaps a clue to how so many Europeans were able to live with the idea of the Holocaust: Once you accept the notion that the state has the right to kill someone and the right to define what is a capital crime, aren't you halfway there?”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 2000 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Review of Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. (4 February 2000)
“Because we all share this small planet earth, we have to learn to live in harmony and peace with each other and with nature. That is not just a dream, but a necessity. We are dependent on each other in so many ways, that we can no longer live in isolated communities and ignore what is happening outside those communities, and we must share the good fortune that we enjoy.”
Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama (born 1935) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Optimists and pessimists die the same way. They just live differently. I prefer to live as an optimist.”
Shimon Peres (1923–2016) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Serving "60 Years to Life", Newsweek Europe (12 December 2005)
“Man must first live before he can live abundantly.”
Aneurin Bevan (1897–1960) said by 1960 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Just as man cannot live without dreams, he cannot live without hope. If dreams reflect the past, hope summons the future.”
Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“According to the statistics, up to 17 million ethnic Russians live in Ukraine, while some four million Ukrainians live in Russia, whether permanently or temporarily.”
Vladimir Putin (born 1952) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Live with President Vladimir Putin, October 18, 2007.
“The cycle of the machine is now coming to an end. Man has learned much in the hard discipline and the shrewd, unflinching grasp of practical possibilities that the machine has provided in the last three centuries: but we can no more continue to live in the world of the machine than we could live successfully on the barren surface of the moon.”
Lewis Mumford (1895–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If I can't really find a way to live with myself, I can't expect anyone else to live with me.”
Peter Sellers (1925–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The Hollywood Book of Extravagance: The Totally Infamous, Mostly Disastrous, and Always Compelling Excesses of America's Film and TV Idols (2007) by James Robert Parish, p. 95
“Obviously, they're all a gang of idiots. But, you know... live and let live.”
David Gilmour (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sometimes my courage fails me and I think I ought to stop working, live in the country and devote myself to gardening. But I am held by a thousand bonds, and I don't know when I shall be able to arrange things otherwise. Nor do I know whether, even by writing scientific books, I could live without the laboratory.”
Marie Curie (1867–1934) said by 1934 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Today in science history(September 19, 2026)
“No matter how many communes anybody invents, the family always creeps back. You can get rid of it if you live in an enclave and keep everybody else out, and bring the children up to be unfit to live anywhere else. They can go on ignoring the family for several generations. But such communities are not part of the main world.”
Margaret Mead (1901–1978) first seen 1973 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Future Families", in The American People in the Age of Kennedy (1973) edited by David M. Kennedy , p. 108
“People who live in the post-totalitarian system know only too well that the question of whether one or several political parties are in power, and how these parties define and label themselves, is of far less importance than the question of whether or not it is possible to live like a human being.”
Václav Havel (1936–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ageing is an extraordinary process... If you are pining for youth I think it produces a stereotypical old man because you only live in memory, you live in a place that doesn’t exist … I think ageing is an extraordinary process whereby you become the person that you always should have been.”
David Bowie (1947–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The primary reality is not what I think, but that I live, for those also live who do not think.”
Bruce Lee (1940–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Moment is freedom. — I couldn't live by a rigid schedule. I try to live freely from moment to moment, letting things happen and adjusting to them.”
Bruce Lee (1940–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The object of mankind is not to live in a perfectly functioning universe, but to live in a tolerable universe, which means one suited to the nature and aspirations of human beings.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy.”
Wendell Berry (1934–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Can you live without answers? All of you, ask that of yourself. Can you live without answers? Because if you cannot, then most assuredly you will invent your own answers and they will comfort you. And all those who do not share your view will by their very existence strike fear and hatred into your heart. What god blesses this?”
Steven Erikson (born 1959) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“People in every country should be free to choose and live their faith based upon the persuasion of the mind, and the heart, and the soul. This tolerance is essential for religion to thrive, but it is being challenged in many different ways. […] Freedom of religion is central to the ability of peoples to live together.”
Barack Obama (born 1961) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It would be more decorous not to live. To live is not decorous, Says he who after many years Returned to the city of his youth. There was no one left Of those who once walked these streets And now they had nothing, except his eyes. Stumbling, he walked and looked, instead of them, On the light they had loved, on the lilacs again in bloom.”
Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) first seen 1984 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: City of My Youth" (1984)
“Afghanistan, under whatever regime, is no threat to the Soviet Union. If the Soviet Union can live with the People's Republic of China as a sworn enemy, surely it can live with its Central Asian neighbours without military occupation.”
Mahathir Mohamad (born 1925) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Being called a musical genius was a cross to bear. Genius is a big word. But if you have to live up to something, you might as well live up to that. God damn!”
Brian Wilson (1942–2025) first seen 1988 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Brian Wilson: God Only Knows" in Rolling Stone (11 August 1988)
“The mollusk's motto would be: one must live to build one's house, and not build one's house to live in.”
Gaston Bachelard (1884–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A king has soldiers, servants, messengers, lieutenants. He governs through his servants. Where are the servants of this—Anti-king?” “In our minds, lad. In our minds. The traitor, the self; the self that cries I want to live; let the world burn so long as I can live! The little traitor soul in us, in the dark, like the worm in the apple.”
Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) said by 2018 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.”
Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) first seen 1987 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Where Do You Get Your Ideas From?" (1987)
“There are other worlds and rational beings of a different and higher kind. The world in which we live is not the only one in which we shall live or have lived.”
Kurt Gödel (1906–1978) said by 1978 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in A Logical Journey: From Gödel to Philosophy (1996) by Hao Wang, p. 316
“One gets the impression that people come to Los Angeles in order to divorce themselves from the past, here to live or try to live in the rootless pleasure world of an adult child.”
Norman Mailer (1923–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Here, lads, we live by the law of the taiga. But even here people manage to live. D’you know who are the ones the camps finish off? Those who lick other men’s left-overs, those who set store by the doctors, and those who peach on their mates.”
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) first seen 1963 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Kuziomin, in the Ralph Parker translation (1963).
“You see, when you're middle class, you have to live with the fact that history will ignore you. You have to live with the fact that history can never champion your causes and that history will never feel sorry for you. It is the price that is paid for day-to-day comfort and silence. And because of this price, all happinesses are sterile; all sadnesses go unpitied.”
Douglas Coupland (born 1961) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full respect for their opinions... but before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.”
Harper Lee (1926–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To live one's love and hatred, to live that which one is means defeat, resignation, and death. The crimes of society, the hell that man has made or man become unconquerable cosmic forces.”
Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979) said by 1979 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is better to die for an idea that will live, than to live for an idea that will die.”
Steve Biko (1946–1977) said by 1977 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The Last Defenders of the Laager: Ian D. Smith and F.W. de Klerk (1985), by Dickson A. Mungazi, p. 204; also in "The Mind of Black Africa" (1996) by Dickson A. Mungazi, p. 159, and under "Ideas" in The Peng…
“[Y]ou have to live without love, learn not to need it, in order to live with it.”
Mary McCarthy (1912–1989) said by 1989 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You want to found a family. [...] [A]ll coming generations shall live to the honour and glory of your name—our name—" "My boy, there is only one Name to whose honour we should all live.”
Dinah Craik (1826–1887) said by 1887 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Right and left; the hothouse and the street. The Right can only live and work hermetically, in the hothouse of the past, while outside the Left prosecute their affairs in the streets manipulated by mob violence. And cannot live but in the dreamscape of the future.”
Thomas Pynchon (born 1937) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is better to live on the house top than to live in a house full of confusion.”
Bob Marley (1945–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Injustice, poverty, slavery, ignorance — these may be cured by reform or revolution. But men do not live only by fighting evils. They live by positive goals, individual and collective, a vast variety of them, seldom predictable, at times incompatible.”
Isaiah Berlin (1909–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers. It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people's business. I live by the golden rule: Treat others as you'd want them to treat you. The religious right wants to tell people how to live.”
Jesse Ventura (born 1951) first seen 1999 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview in Playboy (November 1999)
“What's the point anyway — Of suffering, dying? It teaches us to live, boy. A man who does not struggle does not live, he survives.”
Oriana Fallaci (1929–2006) first seen 1979 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Man (1979)
“My own heart let me have more have pity on; let Me live to my sad self hereafter kind, Charitable; not live this tormented mind With this tormented mind tormenting yet.”
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889) said by 1889 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When the tail of the tadpole drops off, it can live both in water and on land. When the tail of ignorance drops off, man becomes free. He can then live both in God and in the world equally well.”
Ramakrishna (1836–1886) said by 1886 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A boat may stay in water, but water should not stay in boat. A spiritual aspirant may live in the world, but the world should not live within him. (266)”
Ramakrishna (1836–1886) said by 1886 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When the tail of the tadpole drops off, it can live both in water and on land. When the tail of delusive ignorance drops off from man, he becomes free. He can then live in God and the world equally well. (955)”
Ramakrishna (1836–1886) said by 1886 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source