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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“But here are wine and beautiful young girls, Be wise and hide your Sorrows in their curls, Dive as you will in life's mysterious sea, You shall not bring us any better pearls.”
Omar Khayyám (1048–1131) said by 1131 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 45 (1902)
“It is, then, the strife of all honorable men and women of the twentieth century to see that in the future competition of the races the survival of the fittest shall mean the triumph of the good, the beautiful, and the true; that we may be able to preserve for future civilization all that is really fine and noble and strong, and not continue to put a premium on greed and imprudence and cruelty.”
W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The reason death sticks so closely to life isn't biological necessity — it's envy. Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can. But life leaps over oblivion lightly, losing only a thing or two of no importance, and gloom is but the passing shadow of a cloud.”
Yann Martel (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To be universal you've got to stain the consciousness of the people. You've got to dig out a truth that everybody knows, but they don't want to hear, then tell it in a manner that's so articulate and so aesthetically indignant, so beautiful, that they've got to accept it back in their lives again. That's what I want to do. Touch something universal in your own language.”
James Dean Bradfield (born 1969) first seen 1996 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Q magazine, November 1996 issue
“The word vagina is a beautiful word, like all words that have v's and g's in them, like gavel, or evangelical. I love vaginas, and evangelicals. I fucking hate gavels though.”
“The palace Beautiful.”
John Bunyan (1628–1688) said by 1688 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My dad's a beautiful man, but like a lot of Mexican men, or men in general, a lot of men have a problem with the balance of masculinity and femininity--intuition and compassion and tenderness--and get overboard with the macho thing. It took him a while to become more, I would say, conscious, evolved.”
Carlos Santana (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But they lived those extraordinary lives that can never be lived again. And in the living of them, they gave me a history that is more profound, more beautiful, more powerful, more passionate, and ultimately more useful, than the best damn history book I ever read.”
Utah Phillips (1935–2008) first seen 1999 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Track 13: "The Long Memory." Fellow Workers, Righteous Babe Records (1999)
“Henry is a beautiful player and has got complete technique, I adore watching him. I respect him very much as a man and as a footballer. He reminds me of myself.”
Thierry Henry (born 1977) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ronaldinho Barcelona chief declares interest in Henry, (20 December 2005)
“Ronaldinho is a special player, but Thierry Henry is probably technically the most gifted footballer ever to play the beautiful game.”
Thierry Henry (born 1977) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No country is more beautiful than England.”
Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) first seen 1928 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech upon receiving the Freedom of the City of Winchester (6 July 1928), published in This Torch of Freedom (1935), p. 116.
“That’s really hard. I am who I am. I don’t really change on camera and I think that’s what a lot of my fans respect about me. I don’t see anything wrong with a beautiful, intelligent girl being sexual and nasty. I can do a rough hard-core sex scene, then do a lecture on DNA. That’s just who I am.”
Tera Patrick (born 1976) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. He can be worshipped in the cathedral or in the laboratory. His creation is majestic, awesome, intricate, and beautiful.”
Francis Collins (born 1950) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief (2006), p. 211
“Once after a dinner party, Gregory Peck and I drove Fred Astaire home. Fred lived in a colonial house that had a long porch with many pillars. When we dropped him off, he danced along the whole front porch, then opened the door, tipped his hat to us, and disappeared. Wow! Greg and I couldn't speak for a few minutes. It was a beautiful way to say thank you.”
Fred Astaire (1899–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Kirk Douglas in Douglas, Kirk. Let's Face It. Wiley, 2007. , p. 26.
“They say that if you gave monkeys a thousand typewriters at some point you'd have yourself a novel. I was wondering if you gave a thousand monkeys a thousand stick of dynamite how long would it take for them to make the city a more beautiful looking place.”
“Any highly evolved form is beautiful.”
Kevin Kelly (editor) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I somehow see what's beautiful In things that are ephemeral I'm my only friend of mine And love is just a piece of time in the world in the world. And I couldn't help but fall in love again.”
Zooey Deschanel (born 1980) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I want to be where your heart is home I want to see you with the light in the morning There’s never been such a beautiful warning to me, to me”
Zooey Deschanel (born 1980) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Even in that pale light I could see that she was more beautiful than ever, the black shadow of her hair framing a face I had seen every night in the misery of sleep for so long. Those deep brown eyes still had that hungry look when they watched mine and the lush fullness of her mouth glistened with a damp warmth of invitation.”
Mickey Spillane (1918–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They had dropped the body behind a pile of cement blocks from a partly shattered wall, pulling a broken section of sheetrock over to hide it from casual view. But there's nothing casual about a little kid who liked to play in junk and found himself stumbling over the mutilated body of what had been a redheaded woman. At one time she would have been beautiful, but death had erased all that.”
Mickey Spillane (1918–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I know of families where children go into a room like that after breakfast, sit down and breathe ten times, in-out-one, in-out-two, in-out-three, ten times, and then they go to school. This is a very beautiful practice. If your child doesn't wish to breathe ten times, how about three times? Beginning the day with being a Buddha is a very nice way to start the day.”
Thích Nhất Hạnh (1926–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The river and everything I remembered about it became a possession to me, a personal, private possession, as nothing else in my life ever had. Now it ran nowhere but in my head, but there it ran as though immortally. I could feel it -- I can feel it -- on different places on my body.... In me it still is, and will be until I die, green, rocky, deep, fast, slow, and beautiful beyond reality.”
James Dickey (1923–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There’s an undeniable pleasure in stepping into an open-top sports car driven by a beautiful woman. It feels like you’re climbing into a metaphor.”
Hugh Laurie (born 1959) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was a beautiful afternoon; one to make you realise that God really can be very good sometimes with weather and scenery.”
Hugh Laurie (born 1959) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“His mother taught him to sing. And when he had grown up and had listened to the world's song, he felt that there could be no greater happiness than to return to her song. In her song dwelt the most precious and most incomprehensible dreams of mankind. The heath grew into the heavens in those days. The songbirds of the air listened in wonder to this song, the most beautiful song of life.”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Was all human endeavor then, even the beautiful of the world, of so little consequence compared with murder?”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What we in Iran had in common with Fitzgerald was this dream that became our obsession and took over our reality, this terrible, beautiful dream, impossible in its actualization, for which any amount of violence might be justified or forgiven.”
Azar Nafisi (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Life for me is great. I'm a very f***in' wealthy person, I'm married to a very beautiful woman and I get laid with monotonous regularity.”
Billy Connolly (born 1942) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I get so much mail from young girls who say, 'I look up to you, you're not as skinny as everyone else, I think you're beautiful' … So when they say that my body is 'ugly' and 'disgusting,' what does that make those girls feel like?”
Tyra Banks (born 1973) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Cover Story: Tyra Banks Speaks Out About Her Weight" (January 24, 2007) People Magazine, Time Inc.
“Have you never heard the most beautiful parable ever, about the boy who went around the world in search of the strangest thing of all, and came to his own home at the end, and it so transfigured that he hardly knew it?”
R. A. Lafferty (1914–2002) first seen 1969 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Configuration of the North Shore (1969), in Damon Knight (ed.), Orbit 5, p. 126
“Babies are like poems. They're beautiful to their creator, but to other people they're silly and fucking irritating.”
Doug Stanhope (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Not to know one another to a degree that went beyond all possibility of knowing one another was beautiful.”
Max Frisch (1911–1991) said by 1991 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Our new little house [Kirchner moved to the Wildboden house] is a real joy to us. We shall live here comfortably and in great new order. This will really come to be a turning point of my life. Everything must be put in clear order and the little house furnished as simply and modestly as possible, while still being beautiful and intimate.”
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938) first seen 1923 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from his Diary, 1923; as quoted by Kornfield, E. W.; Stauffer, Christine E. Stauffer (1992). Biography Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Kirchner Museum Davos. Retrieved March 21, 2016; from Wikipedia: Kirchner
“The beautiful, architectonically constructed, severely formed bodies of these women [his girlfriend in Berlin and life companion, Erna with her sister Gerda] replaced the soft Saxon physique.”
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938) first seen 1925 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In an unpublished manuscript 'Die Arbeit E. L. Kirchners', by E. L. Kirchner 1925–1926; as quoted in Kirchner and the Berlin street, ed. Deborah Wye, Moma, New York, 2008, p. 36
“The most perfect caricature is that which, on a small surface, with the simplest means, most accurately exaggerates, to the highest point, the peculiarities of a human being, at his most characteristic moment in the most beautiful manner.”
Max Beerbohm (1872–1956) first seen 1901 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Spirit of Caricature (1901)
“Concerts are never real music, you have to give up the idea of hearing in them all the most beautiful things of art.”
Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) said by 1849 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nothing is more beautiful than a good guitar, save perhaps two.”
Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) said by 1849 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Cited—as a "saying of Chopin"–by in Poor Folk in Spain (1922), p. 229.
“We grow up thinking that the beautiful and the talented have been born that way, because they are born rich. The boys in the college gym with fine, muscular bodies—I thought they were athletes because of their bodies, not that their bodies were muscular because they were athletes. I thought I was the only one in the world who had to try so hard to become.”
Richard Rodriguez (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Never let a beautiful woman pick your path for you when there is a man in her line of sight. -Adie, Wizard's First Rule”
Terry Goodkind (1948–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To select, combine and concentrate that which is beautiful in nature and admirable in art is as much the business of the landscape painter in his line as in the other departments of art.”
J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) first seen 1810 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote of Turner, c. 1810; as quoted in: Dennis Hugh Halloran (1970) The Classical Landscape Paintings of J.M.W. Turner. p. 75
“What will it take to rally all peoples and nations to unite in the name of humanity? An all-out alien invasion or imminent mass extinction? Perhaps a gentler proposal like a Human Heritage Month would help to raise awareness that we are all human beings living together on the same beautiful planet marred by undue human conflicts and selfishness.”
Newton Lee wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Even a large majority of beautiful music, great literature, and wonderful work of arts depicts human suffering, injustice, fears, and unfulfilled desires.”
Newton Lee wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nature is beautiful and calm, but it can also be violent and deadly in an astronomical scale.”
Newton Lee wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I said "boy, I'd love to get a tour of this house cause it's so beautiful". So she hooks my arm, and she walks by. And then the grooms mother, trying to help me out says "Can I help you ladies with anything?" And then Brooke's Mom; and this is why I love her, without missing a beat, says to the groom's mother - "Shut up, you fucking cunt"!! It was a fucking dream come true!”
Kathy Griffin (born 1960) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is a saying among art educators that a person just starting out in color will mix ten gallons of mud before learning how to make beautiful color.”
Betty Edwards (born 1926) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In itself and in its consequences the life of leisure is beautiful and ennobling in all civilised men's eyes.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The requirement of conspicuous wastefulness is... present as a constraining norm selectively shaping and sustaining our sense of what is beautiful.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The trouble with taxonomic boxes is... that that they tend to be empty, however beautiful they are on the outside.”
Kenneth Boulding (1910–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 75 as cited in: R. Harper, L. Palen, A. Taylor (2005) The Inside Text: Social, Cultural and Design Perspectives on SMS. p. 79
“To rejoice in life, to find the world beautiful and delightful to live in, was a mark of the Greek spirit, which distinguished it from all that had gone before. It is a vital distinction.”
Edith Hamilton (1867–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One must preach life, not death; spread hope, not fear and cultivate joy, man's most valuable treasure. That is the secret of the greatest of the wise, and it will be the light of tomorrow. Passions are sad. Hatred is sad. Joy destroys passions and hatred. Let us begin by telling ourselves that sadness is never noble, beautiful or useful.”
Émile Chartier (1868–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source