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. 1,161,747 quotes Who coined it · How we decide

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“It really comes down to parsimony, economy of explanation. It is possible that your car engine is driven by psychokinetic energy, but if it looks like a petrol engine, smells like a petrol engine and performs exactly as well as a petrol engine, the sensible working hypothesis is that it is a petrol engine.”
Richard Dawkins (born 1941) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There was a story that some EMI execs had come down to see you and you'd said something like: "Here's what I've been working on," and then produced some cakes from your oven. True? "No! I don't know where that came from. I thought that was quite funny actually. It presents me as this homely creature, which is all right, isn't it?”
Kate Bush (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Those wise men knew God to be in things, and Divinity to be latent in Nature, working and glowing differently in different subjects and succeeding through diverse physical forms, in certain arrangements, in making them participants in her, I say, in her being, in her life and intellect.”
Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) said by 1600 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As translated by Arthur Imerti (1964)
“In the Philippines, in South and Central America, democracy has been given a rebirth. Throughout the Pacific, free markets are working miracle after miracle of economic growth. In the industrialized nations, a technological revolution is taking place--a revolution marked by rapid, dramatic advances in computers and telecommunications.”
Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Friends and colleagues all of a sudden looked at us, treated us, slightly differently than had months or years before when we were working together. I never quite understood that.”
Neil Armstrong (1930–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Preflight planners wanted us to stay in TV range so that they could learn from our results how they could best plan for future missions. I candidly admit that I knowingly and deliberately left the planned working area out of TV coverage to examine and photograph the interior crater walls for possible bedrock exposure or other useful information.”
Neil Armstrong (1930–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As I said this morning, I am not impressed by the opportunities open to popular fronts throughout the world. I do not believe that any democrat can successfully ride that tiger. But I do believe in the necessity of great powers working together to preserve the human race, or otherwise we can be destroyed.”
John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All are architects of Fate, Working in these walls of Time.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Just now I've taen the fit o' rhyme, My barmie noddle's working prime.”
Robert Burns (1759–1796) first seen 1786 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: To J. S[mith], st. 4 (1786)
“We bow our heads before Thee, and we laud And magnify thy name Almighty God! But man is thy most awful instrument In working out a pure intent.”
William Wordsworth (1770–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Civil government does by its nature include much that is mechanical, and must be treated accordingly. We term it indeed, in ordinary language, the Machine of Society, and talk of it as the grand working wheel from which all private machines must derive, or to which they must adapt, their movements.”
Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) said by 1881 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A spontaneous, passionate, yet just, true-meaning man! Full of wild faculty, fire and light; of wild worth, all uncultured; working out his life-task in the depths of the Desert there.”
Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) said by 1881 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Whoever lives a noble life for Christ and God — he is one of God's workmen, working on that building of which God is the supreme Architect.”
Henry Ward Beecher (1813–1887) said by 1887 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The New Deal is plainly an attempt to achieve a working socialism and avert a social collapse in America; it is extraordinarily parallel to the successive "policies" and "Plans" of the Russian experiment. Americans shirk the word "socialism", but what else can one call it?”
H. G. Wells (1866–1946) first seen 1939 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The New World Order (1939)
“Today 29-9-34 in the garden, rockery side, looking up to the house where Bone was working, sky bluish, very gentle, I looked without theories or self consciousness. This happens very seldom, though I can prolong the delight if I prevent my engines from restarting.”
E. M. Forster (1879–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Write me at the Hotel Quintana, Pamplona, Spain. Or don't you like to write letters. I do because it's such a swell way to keep from working and yet feel you've done something”
Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) first seen 1917 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald (1 July 1925); published in Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters 1917–1961 (1981) edited by Carlos Baker
“The king was working in the garden. He seemed very glad to see me. We walked through the garden. This is the queen, he said. She was clipping a rose bush. Oh how do you do, she said. We sat down at a table under a big tree and the king ordered whiskey and soda. We have good whiskey anyway, he said.”
Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You're an expatriate. You've lost touch with the soil. You get precious. Fake European standards have ruined you. You drink yourself to death. You become obsessed by sex. You spend all your time talking, not working. You are an expatriate, see? You hang around cafés.”
Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was the first time that I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle ... There was much in it that I did not understand, in some ways I did not even like it, but I recognized it immediately as a state of affairs worth fighting for.”
George Orwell (1903–1950) said by 1950 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“During the war of 1914-18 the English working class were in contact with foreigners to an extent that is rarely possible. The sole result was that they brought back a hatred of all Europeans, except the Germans, whose courage they admired. In four years on French soil they did not even acquire a liking for wine.”
George Orwell (1903–1950) said by 1950 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I was working on this movie and the makeup artist was just so ugly! I just wanted to say "Physician, heal thyself!" She looked exactly like Aaron Neville, and she was trying her hardest to make me look exactly like Aaron Neville. This one time, she leaned into my face with the mascara wand almost touching my eye and she says, "Whass my name?”
Margaret Cho (born 1968) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The meaning and design of a problem seem not to lie in its solution, but in our working at it incessantly.”
Carl Jung (1875–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Is it not true that our brotherhood transcends distances, different languages, and the absence of close cultural links, and unites us in the struggle? Ought not a Japanese worker be closer to an Argentine laborer, a Bolivian miner, a man working for United Fruit Company or a Cuban cane cutter, than to a Japanese samurai?”
Che Guevara (1928–1967) first seen 1959 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Promoting proletarian internationalism in a September 1959 article published in the Mexican review Humanismo, as quoted in The Marxism of Che Guevara (1973), by Michael Löwy, p. 108
“They call our miserably exploited Indians, persecuted and reduced to utter wretchedness, "little Indians" and they call blacks and mulattos, disinherited and discriminated against, "colored" — all this as a means of dividing the working masses in their struggle for a better economic future. For all of us, the peoples of the Americas, they have a polite and refined term: "underdeveloped.”
Che Guevara (1928–1967) said by 1967 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let us go on committing suicide by working among our people, and let them dream life just as the lake dreams the sky.”
Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Perl has a long tradition of working around compilers.”
Larry Wall (born 1954) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“: Why Bible quotes exclusively? What happened to the Eastern religions?I'm still working on the Unicode mods.”
Larry Wall (born 1954) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The socialism I believe in is everyone working for each other, everyone having a share of the rewards. It's the way I see football, the way I see life.”
Bill Shankly (1913–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[God, who was James Mason, to Noah] "Noah, stop what you're doing and build me an ark!" [Noah, who was Sean Connery] "I'm working on a speed boat at the moment. Much more exciting. It'll really kick ass, give great photographs for the people in Bible.”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“So, I thought, it's not working. So I threw my breasts out of the window of my Lamborghini, in my mind … no, I threw the breasts out of the window of my Ford Fiesta, in my mind. Actually, I threw them out over the handlebars of my bicycle [mouthing the words] in my mind. And they hit a small child, who ran, "Mum, mum, mum … I've been attacked by … jellyfish!”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The natur o' things doesn't change, though it seems as if one's own life was nothing but change. The square o' four is sixteen, and you must lengthen your lever in proportion to your weight, is as true when a man's miserable as when he's happy; and the best o' working is, it gives you a grip hold o' things outside your own lot".”
George Eliot (1819–1880) said by 1880 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[Mr Johnson] "You know what a Tory is – one who wants to drive the working men as he'd drive cattle.”
George Eliot (1819–1880) said by 1880 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“An energy is a soul — a something working in us.”
Samuel Butler (novelist) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If I should find something it will probably be a position between clergy man and missionary in the suburbs of London among the working people. Do not speak to anybody about it yet.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1876 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In his letter to brother Theo from Welwyn, England, 17 June 1876; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935, p. 17 (letter 69)
“When we are working at a difficult task and strive after a good thing, we are fighting a righteous battle, the direct reward of which is that we are kept from much evil. As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1877 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from Vincent's letter to Theo, from Amsterdam, 30 May 1877; Dear Theo: the Autobiography of Vincent Van Gogh;, ed. Irving Stone and Jean Stone (1995), p. 26
“And my intention is to try to form a collection of many such things, which would not be quite unworthy of the title 'heads of the people.' By working hard, boy, I hope to succeed in making something good. It isn't there yet, but I aim at it, and struggle for it. I want something serious, - some thing fresh - something with soul in it! Forward - forward -”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1883 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: quote in his letter to brother Theo, from The Hague, The Netherlands, 3 Jan. 1883; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935], (letter 257), pp. 20-21
“If you hear a voice within you saying, "You are not a painter," then by all means paint, boy, and that voice will be silenced, but only by working. He who goes to trends and tells his troubles when he feels like that loses part of his manliness, part of the best that's in him; your friends can only be those who themselves struggle against it, who raise your activity by their own example of action.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1883 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote in his letter from Drenthe, The Netherlands, Oct. 1883, 'Van Gogh's Letters',
“It is hard, terribly hard, to keep on working when one does not sell, and one literally has to pay for one's colors from what would not be too much for eating, drinking and lodgings, calculated ever so strictly. And then, besides, the models.. .All the same they are building State museums, and the like, for hundreds of thousands, but meanwhile, the artists can go to the dogs.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1885 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote in his letter, from Antwerp, Belgium, Dec. 1885; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935, (letter 438) p. 35
“I am not working for myself alone, I believe in the absolute necessity for a new art of color, of design, and - of the artistic life..”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Theo, Spring 1888; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935, (letter 469) p. 22
“Now I'm working with another model, a postman in a blue uniform with gold trimmings, a big, bearded face, very Socratic. A raging republican, like père Tanguy. A more interesting man than many people..”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Theo, 31 July 1888; from letter 652 - van goghletters online
“This art that we are all working in, we feel it has a long future before it, and one must have some settled base, like steady people, and not like decadents. Here my life will become more and more like a Japanese painter's, living close to nature like a petty tradesman.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Theo, Autumn 1888; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935, (letter 540), pp. 22-23
“[E]verything is always working out for you.”
Oprah Winfrey (born 1954) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is impossible for an author still writing to be fair to another author working along the same lines. At least I find it so. In fact I dislike Dune with some intensity, and in that unfortunate case it is much the best and fairest to another author to keep silent and refuse to comment.”
J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) first seen 1966 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to John Bush, 12 March 1966. Quoted in "Tolkien's Library: An Annotated Checklist" by Oronzo Cilli
“I have four children, and I want them to grow up in a country that has a working First Amendment.”
Frank Zappa (1940–1993) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Appearance on CBS Morning News (18 September 1985) - YouTube video
“On seeing the Enterprise's warp engine while visiting the set of Star Trek: The Next Generation (where he would briefly play himself in the 1993 episode Descent, Part I), Hawking smiled and said: I'm working on that.”
Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) first seen 1999 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in The Star Trek Encyclopedia (1999) by Michael Okuda and Denise Okuda, p. 185
“I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I'm not afraid of death, but I'm in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first ... I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.”
Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) first seen 2011 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "Stephen Hawking: 'There is no heaven; it's a fairy story'" by Ian Sample, in The Guardian (15 May 2011)
“Pure psychic automatism, by which one seeks to express, be it verbally, in writing, or in any other manner, (is) the real working of the mind. Dictated by the unconsciousness, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, and free from aesthetic or moral preoccupations.”
André Breton (1896–1966) first seen 1929 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: from 'Manifesto du Surréalisme', André Breton, Paris, Editions KRA, 1929
“A story is told according to which Saint-Pol-Roux, in times gone by, used to have a notice posted on the door of his manor house in Camaret, every evening before he went to sleep, which read: ‘THE POET IS WORKING’.”
André Breton (1896–1966) said by 1966 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Further, for the untold number of hard-working, responsible American workers and business men and women who've been forced to go without needed bank loans, the banking credit crunch must end. I won't neglect my responsibility for sound regulations that serve the public good, but regulatory overkill must be stopped. And I've instructed our Government regulators to stop it.”
George H. W. Bush (1924–2018) said by 2018 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The real cycle you're working on is a cycle called yourself. The machine that appears to be "out there" and the person that appears to be "in here" are not two separate things. They grow toward Quality or fall away from Quality together.”
Robert M. Pirsig (1928–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source