Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,161,747 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
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“If someone were to prove to me- right this minute- that God, in all his luminescence, exists, it wouldn't change a single aspect of my behavior.”
Luis Buñuel (1900–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Whenever he [Charlemagne] decided to help somebody's morals, people would bury their small change and hide in the swamps and forests.”
Will Cuppy (1884–1949) said by 1949 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All good niggas, all the niggas who change the world, die in violence. They don't die in regular ways.”
Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) said by 1996 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Every day, I'm standing outside trying to sing my way in: We are hungry, please let us in. We are hungry, please let us in. After about a week that song is gonna change to: We hungry, we need some food. After two, three weeks, it's like: Give me the food Or I'm breaking down the door. After a year you're just like: I'm picking the lock. Coming through the door blasting.”
Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) said by 1996 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Isn’t there any way—” He broke off. Can’t the past be altered? he asked himself. Evidently not. Cause and effect work in only one direction, and change is real. So what’s gone is gone, and I might as well get out of here.”
Philip K. Dick (1928–1982) said by 1982 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Just what he hoped to see; just what the entire struggle has been about. How long it had been in coming…almost two centuries more than it should have taken. The mind of man was uncommonly stubborn and slow to change. Reformers, including himself, were always prone to forget that. Victory always seemed just around the corner. But generally it was not, after all.”
Philip K. Dick (1928–1982) said by 1982 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Maybe I shouldn’t have told you—about it being electrical.” She put her hand out, touched his arm; she felt guilty, seeing the effect it had on him, the change. ”No,” Rick said. “I’m glad to know. Or rather—” He became silent. “I’d prefer to know.”
Philip K. Dick (1928–1982) said by 1982 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I acquiesced in this on the grounds that the most anyone can expect from a holiday is a change of agony.”
Quentin Crisp (1908–1999) said by 1999 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Is there anything more terrible than perpetual motion, than doing and doing and doing, without a reason, without a consciousness, without a change, without an end?”
T. H. White (1906–1964) said by 1964 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am not very clever about Americanisms — and I understand they change very quickly.”
Agatha Christie (1890–1976) said by 1976 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Despite all evidence to the contrary I do not believe humans innately cruel, but they fear change of any kind.”
Gore Vidal (1925–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“'Liberal' comes from the Latin liberalis, which means pertaining to a free man. In politics, to be liberal is to want to extend democracy through change and reform. One can see why the word had to be erased from our political lexicon.”
Gore Vidal (1925–2012) first seen 1992 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: America First? America Last? America at Last?," Lowell Lecture, Harvard University (20 April 1992)
“Every daring attempt to make a great change in existing conditions, every lofty vision of new possibilities for the human race, has been labelled Utopian.”
Emma Goldman (1869–1940) first seen 1912 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Socialism: Caught in the Political Trap", a lecture (c. 1912), published in Red Emma Speaks, Part 1 (1972) edited by Alix Kates Shulman
“Obstacles cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields to stern resolve. He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.”
Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) said by 1519 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose honest arrogance and have seen no occasion to change.”
Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) said by 1959 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The World's Best Thoughts on Life & Living (1981) compiled by Eugene Raudsepp; also quoted in The Michigan Daily (10 November 1998)
“The purpose of military is to start wars and change governments and it's not sort of...deter conflict? we're gonna invade countries? and you know, my mind was spinning...”
Wesley Clark (born 1944) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Address to Commonwealth Club of California (3 October 2007)
“Democracy for the cast majority of the people, and suppression by force, i.e., exclusion from democracy, of the exploiters and oppressors of the people - this is the change democracy undergoes during the transition from capitalism to Communism.”
Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) said by 1924 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The status of women up to now has been compared to that of a slave; women have been tied to the home, and only socialism can save them from this. They will only be completely emancipated when we change from small-scale individual farming to collective farming and collective working of the land.”
Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) said by 1924 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Yoga powers. To make oneself invisible or small. To become gigantic and reach to the farthest things. To change the course of nature. To place oneself anywhere in space or time. To summon the dead. To exalt senses and perceive inaccessible images, of events on other worlds, in one's deepest inner mind, or in the minds of others.”
Jim Morrison (1943–1971) said by 1971 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas — uncertainty, progress, change — into crimes.”
Salman Rushdie (born 1947) first seen 1990 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Herbert Reade Memorial Lecture (6 February 1990)
“The central task of education is to implant a will and a facility for learning; it should produce not learned but learning people. The truly human society is a learning society, where grandparents, parents, and children are students together. In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I think we need to change that old saying, "I don't need a building to fall on me." Because two did and we still don't get it. I think we all stick our head in the sand as a deep human impulse.”
Bill Maher (born 1956) first seen 2002 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: When You Ride Alone You Ride with Bin Laden: What the Government Should Be Telling Us to Help Fight the War on Terrorism (2002)
“Charlton Heston...recently was re-elected president of the NRA for the third term. And they made an exception, because their charter, their constitution, says you can only have two terms, but they changed it. Ah. So constitutions can change. Interesting. Because it is called the Second Amendment. The word "amendment" itself means, "We had another thought! We re-thought something!”
Bill Maher (born 1956) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The problem with communism and with some very recent ideologies here at home is that they think you can change reality by screaming at it, that you can bend human nature by holding your breath. But that’s the difference between reality and your mommy. Lincoln once said that you can repeal all past history, but you still cannot repeal human nature. But he’s canceled now, so f*** him.”
Bill Maher (born 1956) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I've spent 3 decades on T.V. mocking Republicans who said climate change was just a theory and now I have to deal with people who say you know what else is just a theory, biology?”
Bill Maher (born 1956) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I guarantee you Satan's gonna have no problems on this planet, 'cause all the women are gonna go: "What a cute butt!" "He's Satan." "You don't know him like I do." "He's the Prince of Darkness." "I can change him.”
Bill Hicks (1961–1994) said by 1994 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My sympathies are, of course, with the Government side, especially the Anarchists; for Anarchism seems to me more likely to lead to desirable social change than highly centralized, dictatorial Communism.”
Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) first seen 1937 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Authors Take Sides on the Spanish War (1937) edited by Nancy Cunard and publisehd by the Left Review
“And the reason we're going to win the nomination is because of you. Because soon or later, all Americans are going to learn what you've already learned; that the biggest lie told by people like me to people like you at election time is that, "If you vote for me, I'm going to solve all your problems." The truth is, the power to change this country is in your hands, not mine.”
Howard Dean (born 1948) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: January 27, 2004
“It takes a son of a bitch to change a habit.”
Stephen King (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The past is obdurate. it doesn't want to change.”
Stephen King (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Home is where your ass is and if you want to move you move your ass the first step is learning to change homes with someone else and have someone else's ass.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) first seen 1993 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: ch. 5, as cited in The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations (1993), pg. 234
“There is only one way to get the change we need - and that is to vote to go; because all EU history shows that they only really listen to a population when it says no.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) first seen 2016 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: EU referendum: Leaving EU a 'leap in the dark' says Cameron BBC News (22 February 2016)
“Take that [Irish border] backstop out, or at the very least give us a legally binding change - within the text of the agreement - that allows for the UK to come out [of the EU] of its own accord, and then we will be able to say that the agreement is imperfect but at least tolerable.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) first seen 2019 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Brexit: May boxed into comfort zone as options disappear BBC News (21 January 2019)
“Change happens at the speed of trust. (cf. The SPEED of Trust, 2008)”
Stephen Covey (1932–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I still hope for change, and believe work and prayer can produce results. I have a button that says Picket and Pray. There's still a chance to turn things around. Glasnost and Perestroika are what we need in the USA, just as much as in the Soviet Union-especially Perestroika! (1988)”
Denise Levertov (1923–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Otherwise this stone would seem defaced beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders and would not glisten like a wild beast's fur: would not, from all the borders of itself, burst like a star: for here there is no place that does not see you. You must change your life.”
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) said by 1926 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A tree ascended there. Oh pure transendence! Oh Orpheus sings! Oh tall tree in the ear! And all things hushed. Yet even in that silence a new beginning, beckoning, change appeared.”
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) said by 1926 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I settled at Cold Mountain long ago Already it seems like ages Wandering free I roam the woods and streams Lingering to watch things be themselves Men don't come this far into the mountains Where white clouds gather and billow Dry grass makes a comfortable mattress The blue sky is a fine quilt Happy to pillow my head on the rock I leave heaven and earth to endless change”
“Since I retired to Cold Mountain I've lived by eating mountain fruits What is there to worry about? Life passes according to karma The months pass like a flowing stream Days and nights like sparks from flint Heaven and earth endlessly change While I sit happily among these cliffs”
“Cold Mountain Son Forever not change I live alone Beyond life death”
“Size seems to make many organizations slow-thinking, resistant to change and smug.”
Warren Buffett (born 1930) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 2006 Chairman's Letter
“MacUser: If you could change one thing, what would it be? Jef Raskin: To not have people assume you can rank every-thing one dimensionally. Or have everybody realise that killing people is not a way to solve problems.”
Jef Raskin (1943–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The suggestion that somehow, because this was a close election, we should fundamentally change our beliefs I just think is silly.”
Dick Cheney (1941–2025) first seen 2000 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: CBS News program Face the Nation (December 2000)
“Most reporters I've spoken with want very badly to understand what is happening to her, but the "why" is really very unimportant. That is just not the point of the show. The journey is how she will deal with this situation, and how it will change her life.”
Caroline Dhavernas (born 1978) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: About her character on Wonderfalls, in "'Wonderfalls' Spills Torrent of Wit" by John Crooks at Zap2it.com (2004)
“When all capital, all production, all exchange have been brought together in the hands of the nation, private property will disappear of its own accord, money will become superfluous, and production will so expand and man so change that society will be able to slough off whatever of its old economic habits may remain.”
Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) said by 1895 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Always Do Your Best. Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.”
Miguel Ángel Ruiz (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No one is more truly helpless, more completely a victim, than he who can neither choose nor change nor escape his protectors.”
John Holt (1923–1985) first seen 1974 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Escape from Childhood (1974).
“You just refuse to leave them alone until they change their minds. Of their own free will.”
Orson Scott Card (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The ways of love are strange and hard: the love you want is always barred; the love you have you want to change. The ways of love are hard and strange.”
Orson Scott Card (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source