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. 1,159,190 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
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“All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of chicanery, fear, greed, imagination and poetry!”
Edgar Allan Poe (disputed) first seen 1901 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: According to John A. Joyce's much-criticized biography Edgar Allen Poe (1901), this was said by Poe to William Barton. Google Books link
“Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.”
Groucho Marx (misattributed) first seen 1947 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As per research conducted by Quote Investigator, more than 25 years before its first in-print attribution to Marx, on April 5, 1973 (as "Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. That's because inside a dog it's to…
“Stay is a charming word in a friend's vocabulary.”
Louisa May Alcott (misattributed) first seen 1872 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Amos Bronson Alcott, her father, in Concord Days (1872), p. 124 : "Stay is a charming word in a friend's vocabulary. But if one does not stay while staying, better let him go where he is gone the while.
Also quoted by: Amos Bronson Alcott (attributed)
“Come, come for you will not find another friend like Me, Where indeed is a Beloved like Me in all the world? Come, come, and do not spend your life in wandering to and fro, Since there is no market elsewhere for your money.”
Rumi (attributed) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“O brave friend, grasp His skirt, Who is removed alike from the world above and below; Who will abide with thee in the house and abroad When thou lackest house and home He will bring forth peace out of perturbations And when thou art afflicted, will keep His promise.”
Rumi (attributed) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“O heart, why art thou a captive in the earth that is passing away? Fly forth from this enclosure, since thou art a bird of the spiritual world; Thou art a darling bosom-friend, thou art always behind the secret veil; Why dost thou make thy dwelling-place in this perishable abode?”
Rumi (attributed) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The nearness of the voice proves to such an one That the voice proceeds from a friend who is near, The sweetness of the kinsman’s voice too, O beloved, Proves the veracity of that kinsman, To the wise whose hearts are enlightened The mere sound of that voice proves its truth.”
Rumi (attributed) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“With muffled heads you cannot see, You’ve wrapped your cloaks in folds about your heads and eyes, Your sense of sight cannot see what before you lies. The world’s eye man is; all the rest’s mere skin and shell, A real eye’s he who strives his Friend to see right well.”
Rumi (attributed) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One day I was filled with longing To behold in human form the splendours of the Friend, To witness the ocean gathered up into a drop, The sun compressed into a single atom.”
Rumi (attributed) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Thou art a darling bosom friend, thou art always behind the secret veil, Why dost thou make thy dwelling-place in this perishable abode, Regard thine own state, go forth and journey From the prison of the Formal world to the meadow of Ideas.”
Rumi (attributed) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“O Ali! out of all forms of religious service Choose thou the shadow of that dear friend of God! Do thou seek refuge in the shadow of the wise man That thou mayest escape thy fierce secret foes, Of all forms of service this is fittest for thee Thou shalt surpass all who were before thee.”
Rumi (attributed) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My best friend was at the grocery store standing behind these two guys in line, and one of the guys told the other that I was a man. He said, 'If you look closely, you can tell that she is,' and the other guy was like, 'Oh, my God! Now that you mention it, she is a man!'. So I'm denying that I'm a man.”
Megan Mullally (attributed) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The world is violent and mercurial — it will have its way with you. We are saved only by love — love for each other and the love that we pour into the art we feel compelled to share: being a parent; being a writer; being a painter; being a friend. We live in a perpetually burning building, and what we must save from it, all the time, is love.”
Tennessee Williams (disputed) first seen 1982 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Statement purportedly made in an interview with James Grissom in 1982; the reliability of this source has been widely disputed since 2023: "Did This Writer Actually Know Tennessee Williams?" by Helen Shaw, in The New Yo…
“They were stronger than Turk and Saracen, but not than Hunger and Disease. Leaders did not know then, as our little Friend at Berlin came to know, that “an Army, like a serpent, goes upon its belly.”
Frederick II of Prussia (attributed) first seen 1858 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Attributed in Thomas Carlyle, “History of Friedrich the Second, Called Frederick the Great", (1858).
“An intimate friend of Faraday once described to me how, when Faraday was endeavouring to explain to Gladstone and several others an important new discovery in science Gladstone's only commentary was “but, after all, what use is it?” “Why, sir,” replied Faraday, “there is every probability that you will soon be able to tax it!”
Michael Faraday (disputed) first seen 1899 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: By William Edward Hartpole Lecky, in Democracy and Liberty (1899, p. xxxi). Lecky's account is then subsequently quoted by R. A. Gregory in Discovery Or The Spirit And Service Of Science (1918, p. 3). Note that Lecky's …
“A malicious enemy is better than a clumsy friend.”
Sophie Swetchine (attributed) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He who has ceased to enjoy his friend’s superiority has ceased to love him.”
Sophie Swetchine (attributed) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Happy painting and God Bless, my friend.”
Bob Ross (attributed) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ken Tucker (2006) Kissing Bill O'Reilly, Roasting Miss Piggy: 100 Things to Love and Hate about TV, Macmillan: , p. 155.
“A fop of fashion is the mercer’s friend, the tailor’s fool, and his own foe.”
Johann Kaspar Lavater (attributed) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Depend on no man, on no friend, but him who can depend on himself.”
Johann Kaspar Lavater (attributed) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The friend of order has made half his way to virtue.”
Johann Kaspar Lavater (attributed) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The true friend of truth and good loves them under all forms, but he loves them most under the most simple form.”
Johann Kaspar Lavater (attributed) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Who purposely cheats his friend, would cheat his God.”
Johann Kaspar Lavater (attributed) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nixon should be told that it is probably an objective of Clifford to depose Thieu before Nixon is inaugurated. Word should be gotten to Nixon that if Thieu meets the same fate as Diem, the word will go out to the nations of the world that it may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal.”
Henry Kissinger (attributed) first seen 1968 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: November 1968, following the election of Richard Nixon as US president
“If I take a liking to someone, I need only the smallest shred of doubt to make me break it off. I am alone, but I don't feel alone... because God is up there. I know people sometimes make fun of me because I am religious, but I feel this profoundly. God is my only friend.”
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (attributed) first seen 1975 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Gérard de Villiers (1975), The Imperial Shah: An Informal Biography, page 273
“I purchased at this price a very beautiful slave girl whose name was Ashura. A friend of mine also bought a young slave named Lulu for two gold coins.”
Ibn Battuta (attributed) first seen 1999 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ibn Battutah while in Bengal saying that a pretty kaniz (slave girl) could be had there for one gold dinar (or 10 silver tankahs). Quoted in K. S. Lal, Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India (New Delhi: Aditya Pra…
“I find that I can agree fully with my good friend Patrick Henry when he said it cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians, not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
Edward Rutledge (misattributed) first seen 1800 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: This is clearly spurious. The only published appearance of this attribution yet located is in Baking Recipes of Our Founding Fathers : Authentic Baking Recipes from the Wives and Mothers Of, & Trivia About, the Signers …
“My lords, we are vertebrate animals, we are mammalia! My learned friend's manner would be intolerable in Almighty God to a black beetle.”
William Henry Maule (attributed) first seen 1820 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On the Authority of Lord Coleridge" [John Duke Coleridge, first Baron Coleridge (1820–1894)]; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 493. The same quotation is given on the same authority i…
“A loyal friend laughs at your jokes when they're not so good, and sympathizes with your problems when they're not so bad.”
Arnold Glasow (attributed) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down.”
Arnold Glasow (attributed) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We salute more willingly an acquaintance in a carriage than a friend on foot.”
Jean Antoine Petit-Senn (attributed) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We know the value of a fortune when we have gained it, and that of a friend when we have lost it.”
Jean Antoine Petit-Senn (attributed) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The grave is a crucible where memory is purified; we only remember a dead friend by those qualities which make him regretted.”
Jean Antoine Petit-Senn (attributed) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Go down the ladder when thou marriest a wife; go up when thou choosest a friend.”
Simeon ben Azzai (attributed) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We hail science as man’s truest friend and noblest helper.”
Moses Harvey (attributed) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There’s not so much danger in a known foe as a suspected friend.”
Thomas Nabbes (attributed) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Dave Grohl: "...It could be Madonna, if she wants to come do a couple of shots of Jagermeister with her friend Dave she's more than welcome to come into the room and I'll pour her some chilli shots of whisky, it'll be great!”
Madonna (entertainer) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Eric West: "A lot of people make her out to be arrogant, and not fan friendly, but I can say otherwise, for such a superstar, she makes you feel as if you’re talking to an old friend.”
Madonna (entertainer) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“George Clooney: "She's probably everybody's high watermark about learning how to reinvent yourself every few years and continue to stay alive. She without a question the absolute best at that. And she's nice, I like her; she's a friend. She's seems to handle things really well; people can be really tough on you on & off at times and she seems very good at handling it.”
Madonna (entertainer) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Mr. Carter always subscribed to what my friend Michael Scroccaro calls 'Underdogma,' a knew-jerk reaction to champion the cause of the underdog however immoral the party. Poverty dictates virtue and weakness dictates righteousness.”
Jimmy Carter (1924–2024) first seen 2014 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Shmuley Boteach, in "The Moral Disintegration of Jimmy Carter" in Observer (August 11, 2014)
“I'll never smoke weed with Willie again My party's all over before it begins You can't pour me some old whiskey River my friend. But I'll never smoke weed with Willie again”
Willie Nelson (born 1933) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Toby Keith and Scotty Emerick, "Weed With Willie", Shock'n Y'all (2003)
“An Indian woman, names Mrs. Galpin, is also with the [1872 Sioux delegation to Washington D.C.]; she has been a great friend of the whites and has more influences with the hostile Indians than most of the chiefs”
Eagle Woman (1820–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“DINEO RANAKA UNPLUGS WITH HER BEST-FRIEND AT KAGGA KAMMA by Cardova”
Dineo Ranaka (born 1983) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But in deede, A friend is never knowne till a man have neede.”
Geoffrey Chaucer (1343–1400) said by 1400 at the latest bartlett, Public domain source
“This passion, and the death of a dear friend, would go near to make a man look sad.”
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) said by 1616 at the latest bartlett, Public domain source
“Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news Hath but a losing office, and his tongue Sounds ever after as a sullen bell, Remember'd tolling a departing friend.”
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) said by 1616 at the latest bartlett, Public domain source
“The world is not thy friend nor the world's law.”
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) said by 1616 at the latest bartlett, Public domain source
“Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) said by 1616 at the latest bartlett, Public domain source
“Who God doth late and early pray More of his grace than gifts to lend; And entertains the harmless day With a religious book or friend.”
Sir Henry Wotton (1568–1639) said by 1639 at the latest bartlett, Public domain source
“Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen, Fallen from his high estate, And welt'ring in his blood; Deserted, at his utmost need, By those his former bounty fed, On the bare earth expos'd he lies, With not a friend to close his eyes.”
John Dryden (1631–1700) said by 1700 at the latest bartlett, Public domain source