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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“They lit us up! Missiles incoming! Six count, closing, dead astern!" "Back-trace the missile lock and feed it to the computer for counter-fire." "Great idea! I'll get right on that first thing as soon as I graduate from gunnery school!”
Matthew Stover (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A Dead Mouse”
MF Doom (1971–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“These be Three silent things: The falling snow...the hour Before the dawn...the mouth of one Just dead.”
Adelaide Crapsey (1878–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Good! Fuck him. I couldn’t be happier that he’s dead.”
Matt Taibbi (born 1970) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On the death of Andrew Breitbart: "Andrew Breitbart: Death of a Douche," Rolling Stone (March 1 2012)
“One day I'll be old, dead, forgotten. And at this very moment, while I'm sitting here thinking these things, a man in a dingy hotel room is thinking, "I will always be here.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For the first time in my life, I took part in a real battle between men. The dead did not come to life again, the vanquished fled in disorder; every thrust of my lance helped save Carmona. That day, I would have died with a smile on my lips, certain of having contributed to a triumphant future for my city.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The League is dead; long live the United Nations!”
Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood (1864–1958) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Last speech before the League of Nations (8 April 1946)
“The dead won't bother you, it's the living you got to to worry about”
John Wayne Gacy (1942–1994) first seen 1992 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Robert Ressler interview (1992), seen in John Wayne Gacy: Devil In Disguise
“Nobody heard him, the dead man, But still he lay moaning: I was much further out than you thought And not waving but drowning.”
Stevie Smith (1902–1971) first seen 1957 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Not Waving but Drowning", st. 1. Not Waving but Drowning (1957)
“I wanted them to see the gloriousness of the California, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah desert. So every chance we got, we stopped the bus and just absorbed that dead heat beauty and that terrain.”
John Lydon (born 1956) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“O Trade, O Trade! Would thou wert dead! The time needs heart — 'tis tired of head.”
Sidney Lanier (1842–1881) first seen 1875 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Symphony" (1875).
“A ghost, Larry, is someone who hasn't made it -- in other words, who died, and they don't know they're dead. So they keep walking around and thinking that you're inhabiting their -- let's say, their domain. So they're aggravated with you.”
Sylvia Browne (1936–2013) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: December 5, 2003 Larry King Live, CNN Interview
“Religion was nearly dead because there was no longer real belief in future life; but something was struggling to take its place — service — social service — the ants' creed, the bees' creed.”
John Galsworthy (1867–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“... culture is useless unless it is constantly challenged by counter culture. People create culture; culture creates people. It is a two-way street. When people hide behind a culture, you know that's a dead culture.”
Muhammad Yunus (born 1940) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Biographers, the quick in pursuit of the dead, research, organize, fill in, contradict, and make in this way a sort of completed picture puzzle with all the scramble turned into a blue eye and the parts of the right leg fitted together.”
Elizabeth Hardwick (1916–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Kromitzki is dead! The catastrophe has come upon us like a thunderbolt. God keep Aniela from any harm in her present state.”
Henryk Sienkiewicz (1846–1916) said by 1916 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Is Anna Nicole Smith still dead?”
Jack Cafferty (born 1942) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The only substantial contribution was made by an RSS lawyer hailing from Anantnag in Kashmir. “I have studied Islam in depth,” he said, “and found it to be a great religion. I cannot understand anyone placing Islam in the dock.” Ironically enough this defender of Islam was literally the first to be shot dead when the ethnic cleansing started in the Valley in the winter of 1989.”
Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Do not grieve for her! Who knows, but she may have found the joy she sought? Love and patience are all that make for happiness in this world; or in the world of the past or of the future; of the living or the dead. She dreamed her dream; and that is all that any of us can ask.”
Bram Stoker (1847–1912) first seen 1903 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Jewel of Seven Stars, Chapter XIX: The Great Experiment (1903)
“THE DEAD TRAVEL FAST”
Bram Stoker (1847–1912) said by 1912 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Men pass my grave, and say, "'Twere well to sleep, Like such an one, amid the uncaring dead!" How should they know the vigils that I keep, The tears I shed?”
John McCrae (1872–1918) first seen 1896 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Penance", st. 2. From the Canadian Magazine (1896)
“What do we find God 'doing about' this business of sin and evil?...God did not abolish the fact of evil; He transformed it. He did not stop the Crucifixion; He rose from the dead.”
Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957) said by 1957 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Written in red their protest stands, For the Gods of the World to see; On the dooming wall their bodiless hands have blazoned "Upharsin," and flaring brands Illumine the message: "Seize the lands! Open the prisons and make men free!" Flame out the living words of the dead Written-in-red.”
Voltairine de Cleyre (1866–1912) said by 1912 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Bear it aloft, O roaring flame! Skyward aloft, where all may see. Slaves of the World! Our cause is the same; One is the immemorial shame; One is the struggle, and in One name — Manhood— we battle to set men free. "Uncurse us the Land!" burn the words of the Dead, Written-in-red.”
Voltairine de Cleyre (1866–1912) said by 1912 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If I only wrote Easy Rawlins, I might be a lot more successful, money-wise and stuff, but the work would be dead.”
Walter Mosley (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the gutters lies the black man, dead, And where oil flows blackest, the streets run red, And there was He who was born and came to be, Who lived and died without liberty”
Bobby Sands (1954–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“you're rich in love you're great bed you'll see the world you'll knock 'em dead and all the thick books that you've read will count for nothing in the end”
Amanda Palmer (born 1976) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Straight" Live (2004)
“I am armed, I am not here, / I am in the depths, am far away ... / I am far away ... / I glow amidst dead.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) first seen 1912 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote (1912), # 931, in The Diaries of Paul Klee, translation: Pierre B. Schneider, R. Y. Zachary and Max Knight; publisher, University of California Press, 1964
“I cannot be grasped in the here and now. For I reside just as much with the dead as with the unborn. Somewhat closer to the heart of creation than usual. But not nearly close enough. The end has met the beginning.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) first seen 1920 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from Exhibition catalogue, Galerie Goltz, Munich, published in the gallery's house journal Der Ararat (May 1920). These words were later used as Klee's epitaph in 1940.
“You can assume that if a writer's work has survived for centuries, there are reasons why this is so, explanations that have nothing to do with a conspiracy of academics plotting to resuscitate a zombie army of dead white males.”
Francine Prose (born 1947) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Reading Like a Writer, ch. 2, p. 15 (2006)
“The multitude is the real productive force of our social world, whereas Empire is a mere apparatus of capture that lives only off the vitality of the multitude — as Marx would say, a vampire regime of accumulated dead labor that survives only by sucking off the blood of the living.”
Antonio Negri (1933–2023) said by 2023 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Bang! Now the animal Is dead and dumb and done. Nevermore to peep again, creep again, leap again, Eat or sleep or drink again, oh, what fun!”
Walter de la Mare (1873–1956) said by 1956 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am fifty years old and I have always lived in freedom; let me end my life free; when I am dead let this be said of me: 'He belonged to no school, to no church, to no institution, to no academy, least of all to any régime except the régime of liberty.'”
Gustave Courbet (1819–1877) first seen 1869 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In a letter of Gustave Courbet (1869); in Letters of Gustave Courbet, 1992, University of Chicago Press, transl. Petra Ten-Doesschate Chu,
“I still dream about Kurt. Every time I see him in a dream, I’ll be amazed and I get this feeling that everyone else thinks he’s dead. It always feels totally real, probably because I’m a very vivid dreamer. But, in my dreams, Kurt’s usually been hiding - we’ll get together and I’ll end up asking him, ‘God, where have you been?’”
Dave Grohl (born 1969) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As for the hired Greeks in Persian service, thousands of the dead were to be buried, but the prisoners were bound in fetters and sent to hard labour in Macedonia, 'because they had fought as Greeks against Greeks, on behalf of barbarians, contrary to the common decrees of the Greek allies.”
Robin Lane Fox (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[modern art is the story of certain peoples'] desire to get rid of what is dead in human experience, to get rid of concepts, whether aesthetic or metaphysical or ethical or social, that, being garbed in the costumes of the past, get in the way of their enjoyment.”
Robert Motherwell (1915–1991) first seen 1944 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Lecture at Mount Holyoke College, August 1944; later published as 'A Tour of the Sublime', in 'Tiger's Eye', 15 Dec. 1948; as cited in 'Robert Motherwell, American Painter and Printmaker', on 'Artstory'
“The potato seems like a Romantic (organic) object.. ..you can watch it growing if you don’t eat it. It is going to change – grow, rot, disappear. A pebble is like a Classical thing – it changes little if any.. .If it was big you could keep the dead down with it.. ..The Classical idea is not around much anymore. [Der Koning is comparing the Potatoes of Vincent Van Gogh to the Pebbles of Jean Arp.”
Willem de Kooning (1904–1997) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Artist Club, 22 February 1952, as quoted in Abstract Expressionist Painting in America, W.C, Seitz, Cambridge Massachusetts, 1983, p. 102
“One hundred religious persons knit into a unity by careful organization do not constitute a church any more than eleven dead men make a football team. The first requisite is life, always.”
Aiden Wilson Tozer (1897–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You know, I worked with Leonardo when he was 18 [on The Quick and the Dead]. He was a virgin, and he would talk about that constantly. So I'm hoping we have some time so he can fill in what's happened in between. Maybe show some photos. Because I'm sure life's different now.”
Leonardo DiCaprio (born 1974) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“At Woodlawn I Heard the dead cry: I was lulled by the slamming of iron, A slow drip over stones, Toads brooding wells.”
Theodore Roethke (1908–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Poetry is not a mere shuffling of dead words or even a corralling of live ones. (p. 89)”
Theodore Roethke (1908–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Come, clear the way, then, clear the way: Blind creeds and kings have had their day. Break the dead branches from the path; Our hope is in the aftermath — Our hope is in heroic men, Star-led to build the world again. To this Event the ages ran: Make way for Brotherhood — make way for Man.”
Edwin Markham (1852–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Employment Service is all but dead. It needs resurrecting and reorganizing. The Statistical Bureau needs revamping too, so it will be an honest fact-finding body. As for the Immigration Service—well, really, Franklin, it is altogether too reactionary for today's world.”
Frances Perkins (1880–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.”
Paul of Tarsus (5–66) said by 66 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But knowing that the one part consisted of Sadducees, and the other of Pharisees, Paul cried out in the sanhedrin, Men, brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees; I am being judged concerning hope and resurrection of the dead!”
Paul of Tarsus (5–66) said by 66 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“However, because I have experienced the help that is from God, I continue to this day bearing witness to both small and great, saying nothing except what the Prophets as well as Moses stated was going to take place that the Christ was to suffer and that as the first to be resurrected from the dead,+ he was going to proclaim light both to this people and to the nations.”
Paul of Tarsus (5–66) said by 66 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is hardly surprising that children should enthusiastically start their education at an early age with the Absolute Knowledge of computer science; while they are unable to read, for reading demands making judgments at every line.... Conversation is almost dead, and soon so too will be those who knew how to speak.”
Guy Debord (1931–1994) said by 1994 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“How can a governing party propose to its people a referendum that won't be binding? Is that a serious political programme? No it is not. It's the final option that will end up with upset, at a dead end, reflecting the last 4 years of the Ibarretxe Plan”
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (born 1960) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Note: April 2005, regarding Juan José Ibarretxe's plan to propose a referendum regarding whether to approve his plan to reform the aunomomy of the Basque Country.
“Since the creation of the United Nations in 1945, over 100 major conflicts around the world have left some 20 million dead.”
Boutros Boutros-Ghali (1922–2016) first seen 1992 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In a speech in 1992. Cited in Awake! magazine, 1995, 9/8; article: How Was the World 50 Years Ago?
“What could be more fascinating than discovering life that had evolved entirely independently of life here on Earth? Many people would also find it heartening to learn that we are not entirely alone in this vast cold cosmos. But I hope that our Mars probes will discover nothing. It would be good news if we find Mars to be completely sterile. Dead rocks and lifeless sands would lift my spirit.”
Nick Bostrom (born 1973) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Where Are They? Why I Hope the Search for Extraterrestrial Life Finds Nothing (2008)