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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“[to guest saying the war is "going to go on for months"] There's no way. There's absolutely no way. They may bomb for a matter of weeks, try to soften them up as they did in Afghanistan. But once the United States and Britain unleash, it's maybe hours. They're going to fold like that.”
Bill O'Reilly (commentator) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 2003-02-10
“Clearly the most unfortunate people are those who must do the same thing over and over again, every minute, or perhaps twenty to the minute. They deserve the shortest hours and the highest pay.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Made to Last (1964), ch. 4
“Happiness,” Jubal stated, “lies in being privileged to work hard for long hours in doing whatever you think is worth doing.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Thank you, dear God, for this good life and forgive us if we do not love it enough. Thank you for the rain. And for the chance to wake up in three hours and go fishing: I thank you for that now, because I won't feel so thankful then.”
Garrison Keillor (born 1942) first seen 1987 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Leaving Home (1987), p. 9
“Lilly had promised him that her stimulants would buy him six hours of coherence, after which the metabolic bill would be delivered by hulking bio-thugs with spiked clubs, virtual repo-men for his neurotransmitter debt.”
Lois McMaster Bujold (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Such rebellion is too deep and too constant to express itself in picketing, marching, sitting-in or freaking out; it is the serious, unresting protest of serious people. It is 24-hours-a-day rebellion, not intermittent, showy, status-seeking public uproar. It is rebellion as a way of life.”
Robertson Davies (1913–1995) said by 1995 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Not all Muslims may be terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims — at least all terrorists capable of assembling a murderous plot against America that leaves 7,000 people dead in under two hours. How are we to distinguish the peaceful Muslims from the fanatical, homicidal Muslims about to murder thousands of our fellow citizens?”
Ann Coulter (born 1961) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Future widows of America: Write your congressman" in Jewish World Review (September 28, 2001).
“I watched, along with all of you, as the tens of thousands of our people stood patiently in long queues for many hours. Some sleeping on the open ground overnight waiting to cast this momentous vote.”
Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Napoleon has humbugged me, by God; he has gained twenty-four hours' march on me.”
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769–1852) first seen 1815 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: At the Duchess of Richmond's ball (15 June 1815), as quoted in Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places (1896) by Archibald Forbes, quotes Captain Bowles account and citing the Letters of the First Earl of Malmesbury.
“I believe that every employee, from the CEO suite to the factory floor, contributes to a business’ success, so everybody should share in the rewards – especially those putting in long hours for little pay.”
Hillary Clinton (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Well, as soon as he [Trump] travels to 112 countries and negotiates a peace deal, a cease fire, the release of dissidents, an opening of new opportunities in nations around the world, or even spends eleven hours testifying in front of a congressional committee, he can talk to me about stamina.”
Hillary Clinton (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Petition me no petitions, sir, to-day; Let other hours be set apart for business. Today it is our pleasure to be drunk; And this our queen shall be as drunk as we.”
Henry Fielding (1707–1754) said by 1754 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One morning he spent three hours talking about feudalism—how it was the clearest political expression of primate dominance dynamics, how it had never really gone away, how transnational capitalism was feudalism writ large, how the aristocracy of the world had to figure out how to subsume capitalist growth within the steady-state stability of the feudal model.”
Kim Stanley Robinson (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I Am Curious (Yellow) is not merely not erotic. It is anti-erotic. Two hours of this movie will drive thoughts of sex out of your mind for weeks. See the picture and buy twin beds... I think there actually is a director in Sweden who is dull and square enough to seriously consider this an art of moviemaking.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 1969 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Review of I Am Curious (Yellow) (23 September 1969)
“I quit work two weeks later--having sold another eighty of my hours--and knew I could never again work a regular job.”
Derrick Jensen (born 1960) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ye golden hours of Life's young spring, Of innocence, of love and truth! Bright, beyond all imagining, Thou fairy-dream of youth!I'd give all wealth that years have piled, The slow result of Life's decay, To be once more a little child For one bright summer-day.”
Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) first seen 1853 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Solitude (1853), conclusion
“That was my longing: for the mountains' divine solitude and peacefulness, for pure, white snow. I got tired of the big city. I am at home again in the mountains. There I sit for many hours amid their white virginity and find myself again.”
Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The greatest mystery about a human being is not his reaction to sex or praise, but the manner in which he contrives to put in twenty-four hours a day. It is this which puzzles the longshoreman about the clerk, the Londoner about the bushman.”
Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For many minutes, for many hours, for a bleak eternity, he lay awake, shivering, reduced to primitive terror, comprehending that he had won freedom, and wondering what he could do with anything so unknown and so embarrassing as freedom. ~ Ch. 9”
Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Hours then of blasphemy and fury and debate, all in the theological terms that seem shocking to the literate citizens today, who believe in God but just don't care to mention him or any of the other lowly friends they knew before they went to Yale. ~ Ch. 6”
Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Your brain is marvellously efficient. It requires only about 400 calories of energy a day — about the same as you get in a blueberry muffin. Try running your laptop for 24 hours on a muffin and see how far you get.”
Bill Bryson (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I know it's past visiting hours, But can I please give her these flowers? You know the best medicine go to people that's paid. If Magic Johnson got a cure for AIDS And all the broke motherfuckers passed away, You telling me if my grandma was in the NBA, Right now, she'd be okay? But since she was just a secretary Working for the church for thirty-five years, Things supposed to stop right here?”
Kanye West (born 1977) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You are only three or four hours from taking your glasses off for keeps.”
L. Ron Hubbard (1911–1986) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Eyesight and glasses" in Dianetic Auditor's Bulletin Vol. 2, No. 7, (January 1952).
“— How is it, Chloe, that your pretty skirt Is torn so badly by the winds that hurt Real people, you who, in eternity, sing The hours, sun in your hair appearing And disappearing? How is that your breasts Are pierced by shrapnel, and the oak groves burn, While you, charmed, caring not at all, turn To run through forests of machinery and concrete And haunt us with the echoes of your feet?”
Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) first seen 1941 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Book in the Ruins" (1941)
“I would have the musicians keep playing over and over again till the sound made sense. I worked overtime on that; I worked hours to get it right. If the sound didn't make any sense, then I wouldn't know what to do — I'd be lost! It's instinct that tells me. I have an instinct for music, or a feeling about it, and I'll have my feelings guide my hands.”
Brian Wilson (1942–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The young watch television twenty-four hours a day, they don't read and they rarely listen. This incessant bombardment of images has developed a hypertrophied eye condition that's turning them into a race of mutants. They should pass a law for a total reeducation of the young, making children visit the Galleria Borghese on a daily basis.”
Federico Fellini (1920–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Workmen's compensation, hours and conditions of labor are cold consolations, if there be no employment.”
Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) first seen 1919 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From the speech "Plymouth, Labor Day" (1 September 1919), as printed in Have Faith in Massachusetts: A Collection of Speeches and Messages (2nd Ed.), Houghton Mifflin, pp. 200-201 : see link above.
“There is not much good spending twelve hours a day in a black hole in the ground all your life long if there’s nothing there, no secret, no treasure, nothing hidden.”
Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) said by 2018 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“People who sleep only two or three hours in the twenty-four are always geniuses. The ones you hear about, anyway. Never mind if the ones you don’t hear about are dolts. Insomnia is genius. It must be. Think of all the work you could do, the thoughts you could think, the books you could read, the love you could make, while the dull clods lie snoring.”
Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) said by 2018 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Now for a good twelve-hour sleep, I told myself. Twelve solid hours. Let birds sing, let people go to work. Somewhere out there, a volcano might blow, Israeli commandos might decimate a Palestinian village. I couldn't stop it. I was going to sleep.”
Haruki Murakami (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We're all too busy working, entertaining ourselves With forty hours, television and prescription pills Well, I take two a day to help my brain behave It never does, but who's to say? At least my doctor gets paid.”
Conor Oberst (born 1980) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The fundamental reality for every worker, from sweeper to executive vice-president, is the eight hours or so that he spends on the job. In our society of organizations, it is the job through which the great majority has access to achievement, to fulfillment, and to community.”
Peter Drucker (1909–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Teachers teach because they care. Teaching young people is what they do best. It requires long hours, patience, and care.”
Horace Mann (1796–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The Quotable Teacher (2006) by Randy Howe, p. 67
“I think continually of those who were truly great. Who, from the womb, remembered the soul's history Through corridors of light where the hours are suns, Endless and singing. Whose lovely ambition Was that their lips, still touched with fire, Should tell of the spirit clothed from head to foot in song.”
Stephen Spender (1909–1995) first seen 1928 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: I Think of Those Who Were Truly Great"; also in Collected Poems 1928-1953 (1955)· Full text online and audio file of recitation by Spender, at the Poetry Archive
“I'd lock myself up in my room with my guitar. I wouldn't cry. I was afraid if I let go just a little bit, it would all go. I would sing for hours by myself . . . . It was my way of crying.”
Gloria Estefan (born 1957) first seen 1993 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Entertainment Weekly (30 July 1993)
“His consolation in those hours when he was most uncharitable to himself is that taken at his very worst he was at least still worthy of being a character in a novel by Balzac, win one day, lose the next, and do it with boom! and baroque in the style.”
Norman Mailer (1923–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In 24 hours she lost eight to 10 purely Russian provinces, 25 million ethnic Russians who have ended up in this very way--as "undesirable aliens." In places where their fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers have lived since way back--even from the 17th century--they face persecution in their jobs and the suppression of their culture, education and language...”
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The happiest and most glorious hours of my life with books have been with German books.”
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) first seen 1966 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Observer (24 April 1966)
“If I write a crappy comic book, it doesn't cost the budget of an emergent Third World nation. When you've got these kinds of sums involved in creating another two hours of entertainment for Western teenagers, I feel it crosses the line from being merely distasteful to being wrong. To paint comic books as childish and illiterate is lazy. A lot of comic books are very literate — unlike most films.”
Alan Moore (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I'm a single guy. I date. I think I enjoy it. For me, nothing caps off a week like four hours of solid tension.”
Jerry Seinfeld (born 1954) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The sad truth is, people are only interested in themselves. So, if you just ask them what they are doing or what’s going on or how they feel, they generally go on for hours.”
Jerry Seinfeld (born 1954) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Oh yeah, there was a point where they said they thought the threat had probably or had possibly been overstated, and then they started to question their sources, and blah, blah, blah. But I don't know how it was resolved, you know? But they were serious about it. And what can you say? I mean, gee, there were a lot of man-hours spent doing that gig, so the least I can say is, "Thank you very much.”
Russell Crowe (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Both dreams and myths are important communications from ourselves to ourselves. If we do not understand the language in which they are written, we miss a great deal of what we know and tell ourselves in those hours when we are not busy manipulating the outside world.”
Erich Fromm (1900–1980) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The New York Times (5 January 1964)
“If an addict who has been completely cured starts smoking again he no longer experiences the discomfort of his first addiction. There exists, therefore, outside alkaloids and habit, a sense for opium, an intangible habit which lives on, despite the recasting of the organism.... The dead drug leaves a ghost behind. At certain hours it haunts the house.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is not the most pleasant employment to spend eight hours a day in a counting house.”
Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834) said by 1834 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“His was a great sin who first invented consciousness. Let us lose it for a few hours.(From: A Diamond As Big as The Ritz)”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was getting rather alarming. I realised one day that in twenty four hours I had slept with three different men. And one morning I was in bed with somebody while over his head I talked on the telephone with somebody else…I did not feel promiscuous. Maybe no-one does. And maybe more girls sleep with more men than you would ever think to look at them.”
Mary McCarthy (1912–1989) said by 1989 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The life I had dreamed of so often during those hot summers on the farm in Georgia or during what seemed like endless hours on the oil truck with my grandfather, expired as Dr. King expired. As so many of you do, I still know exactly where I was when I heard the news. It was a low moment in our nation's history and a demarcation between hope and hopelessness for many of us.”
Clarence Thomas (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The habit of reading is the only one I know in which there is no alloy. It lasts when all other pleasures fade. It will be there to support you when all other resources are gone. It will be present to you when the energies of your body have fallen away from you. It will make your hours pleasant to you as long as you live.”
Anthony Trollope (1815–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Forbes (April 1948), p. 42
“If you cross the Atlantic with an American lady you invariably fall in love with her before the journey is over. Travel with the same woman in a railway car for twelve hours, and you will have written her down in your own mind in quite other language than that of love.”
Anthony Trollope (1815–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source