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 saying that White power and privilege is at an all-time high is just ridiculous. Higher than a century ago, the year of the Tulsa Race Massacre? Higher than the years when the KKK rode unchecked and Jim Crow went unchallenged? Higher than the 1960s when The Supremes and Willie Mays still couldn't stay at the same hotel as the White people they were working with? Higher than during slavery?”
Bill Maher (born 1956) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But we believed if we kept on working, if we kept on marching, if we kept on voting, if we kept on believing, we would make America beautiful for everybody.”
Al Sharpton (born 1954) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“People pay lip service to saving the planet, but they don't – they fail to make the big leap that if you want to save the planet, kill your fucking self. The planet will be saved without you. And what a delightful place it'll be. Welcome. It's a new thing I'm working on, called "The Comedy of Hate". Join in.”
Bill Hicks (1961–1994) said by 1994 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No amount of profit-sharing or self-government by the workers, no amount of hygienic conditions or cocoa villages or recreation grounds can get rid of the fundamental slavery — the necessity of working.”
Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am concerned for the security of our great Nation; not so much because of any potential threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within which, opposed to all of our great traditions, have gravely weakened the structure and tone of our American way of life.”
Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964) first seen 1908 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Austin, Texas (13 June 1951); as published in General MacArthur Speeches and Reports 1908-1964, ed. Edward T. Imparato, Turner Publishing Company (2000), p.175
“You are now a famous champion, that has crowned with victory a righteous cause for which many stalwart knights and gallant gentlemen have made the supreme sacrifice, because they knew that in the end the right must conquer. Your success thus represents the working out of a great moral principle, and to explain the practical minutiae of these august processes is not always quite respectable.”
James Branch Cabell (1879–1958) said by 1958 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“People with new ideas could distribute programs as freeware, asking for donations from satisfied users, or selling hand-holding services. I have met people who are already working this way successfully.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Mombi was not exactly a Witch, because the Good Witch who ruled that part of the Land of Oz had forbidden any other Witch to exist in her dominions. So Tip's guardian, however much she might aspire to working magic, realized it was unlawful to be more than a Sorceress, or at most a Wizardess.”
L. Frank Baum (1856–1919) first seen 1904 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Marvelous Land of Oz (1904), Ch. 1 : Tip Manufactures Pumpkinhead
“What do you say to the elections in the factory districts? Once again the proletariat has discredited itself terribly... [I]t cannot be denied that the increase of working-class voters has brought the Tories more than their mere additional percentage and has improved their relative position.”
Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) first seen 1846 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Karl Marx (18 November 1868), quoted in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Selected Correspondence, 1846–1895 (1942), pp. 253-254
“It is not when he is working in the office but when he is lying idly on the sand that his soul utters, "Life is beautiful.”
Lin Yutang (1895–1976) said by 1976 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If Botticelli were alive today he'd be working for Vogue.”
Peter Ustinov (1921–2004) first seen 1968 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The Observer (21 October 1968); a punctuation variant occurs in some publications: "If Botticelli were alive today, he'd be working for Vogue.
“The working of this young lady's spirit was strange, and I can only give it to you as I see it, not hoping to make it seem altogether natural.”
Henry James (1843–1916) said by 1916 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Only in recent history has “working hard” signaled pride rather than shame for lack of talent, finesse and, mostly, sprezzatura.”
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (born 1960) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Possibly the only real object-oriented system in working order. (About Internet)”
Alan Kay (born 1940) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 2010 for Computerworld Australia
“It is impossible to finish off capitalism without having finished off social democracy in the working-class movement.”
Joseph Stalin (1878–1953) first seen 1939 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Voprosi Leninizma, Gosudarstvennoe izdatelstvo politicheskoy literaturi, (1939)
“What would happen if capital succeeded in smashing the Republic of Soviets? There would set in an era of the blackest reaction in all the capitalist and colonial countries, the working class and the oppressed peoples would be seized by the throat, the positions of international communism would be lost.”
Joseph Stalin (1878–1953) first seen 1926 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at The Seventh Enlarged Plenum of the E.C.C.I. (December 1926)
“But you have not seen the last of me! Twelve years of my party life are, or ought to be, a sufficient guarantee of my faith in Socialism. Socialism is something which takes root in the heart... Do not think that in taking away my membership card you will be taking away my faith in the cause, or that you will prevent my still working for Socialism and revolution.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1914 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mussolini the ‘Socialist’” Speech in Milan (25 November 1914) Mussolini the “Socialist” p. 5
“[Marx was] the magnificent philosopher of working class violence.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted by Mussolini in From George Sorel: Essays in Socialism and Philosophy by John L. Stanley (1987) p. 4.
“But you cannot say anymore that the United States is going to pay for the wall. I am just going to say that we are working it out. Believe it or not, this is the least important thing that we are talking about, but politically this might be the most important talk about.”
Donald Trump (born 1946) first seen 2017 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Full transcripts of Trump's calls with Mexico and Australia By Greg Miller, Julie Vitkovskaya and Reuben Fischer-Baum; Aug. 3, 2017 (Friday, January 27, 2017)
“I love working. I'm not a vacation guy. Right? Like Obama, he plays golf in Hawaii. He flies in a 747.”
Donald Trump (born 1946) first seen 2016 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Hardball with Chris Matthews, August 4, 2017 April 21, 2016 rally
“My Dad, , was the smartest and hardest working man I ever knew.”
Donald Trump (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I'm going to be working for you. I'm not going to have time to go play golf.”
Donald Trump (born 1946) first seen 2016 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Trump used to have a slightly different opinion of presidents playing golf by Phillip Bump, Washington Post, August 8 Virginia rally (August 20, 2016)
“While my opponent slanders you as deplorable... I call you hard-working, American patriots.”
Donald Trump (born 1946) first seen 2016 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Donald Trump Campaign Rally in Ashville, North Carolina, C-SPAN.org (12 September 2016).
“Britain has joined its brethren in the 'civilised West' to legitimise civil partnerships, which to us simply means same-sex marriages. They are also putting a ban on preaching because it offends Muslim minorities. Britain has, of course, made Sunday a working day.”
Peter Akinola (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When I am gone I hope there may still be courageous people in the world to criticize me, so that I don't become a hindrance on anybody's path. And those who will criticize me will not be my enemies; neither am I the enemy of those whom I have criticized. The working of the enlightened masters just has to be understood.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Yes, indeed, he assured himself rapidly, things did seem to be working around to a grand payoff in the great game of trading heroic feats for intimate maidenly favors that all heroes lived or at least hoped by, no matter how disordered and irregular the bookkeeping.”
Fritz Leiber (1910–1992) said by 1992 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Thinking is easier than working. And the best kind of thinking is the kind where you don't have to write anything down, i.e., "meeting thinking." When you think up an idea during a meeting, all you have to do is blurt it out. You won't have to involve any parts of your body except your mouth and maybe your brain stem.”
Scott Adams (1957–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This dish might not turn you into a syndicated cartoonist, but whatever you’re doing now probably isn’t working either.”
Scott Adams (1957–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It may be inverted snobbishness but I don't want old style, Old Etonian Tories of the old school to succeed me and go back to the old complacent, consensus ways. John Major is someone who has fought his way up from the bottom and is far more in tune with the skilled and ambitious and worthwhile working classes than Douglas Hurd is.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) first seen 1990 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remarks to Woodrow Wyatt (23 November 1990), quoted in Sarah Curtis (ed.), The Journals of Woodrow Wyatt: Volume Two (Pan, 2000), pp. 401-402
“Who is seducing whom? If we are working to the same ends, there is no need for so many cross-purposes.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Have a lived life instead of a career. Put yourself in the safekeeping of good taste. Lived freedom will compensate you for a few losses... If you don't like the style of others, cultivate your own. Get to know the tricks of reproduction, be a self-publisher even in conversation, and then the joy of working can fill your days. - George Konrad”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[Rock 'n' roll] really is not given to thinking — and resents thinking. Which I believe is the big error of rock 'n' roll. It's always aspired to be the music of the working class. And it's never been looked upon as a vocabulary for art and artistic thinking... We have to be able to expand the vocabulary to express more complex thoughts.”
Paul Simon (born 1941) first seen 1984 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview in Musician (March 1984), p. 66-68
“Without self knowledge, without understanding the working and functions of his machine, man cannot be free, he cannot govern himself and he will always remain a slave.”
G. I. Gurdjieff (1866–1949) said by 1949 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In October 2025, Dolly reassured fans about her health, saying, "I don’t think God is through with me... I ain't done working." She humorously added, "I ain't ready to die yet.”
Dolly Parton (1946–2026) first seen 2025 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dolly Parton Speaks Out Amid Public Concern Over Her Health(Oct 08, 2025)
“Now I am working on an 'Ethics' à la Spinoza. It is designed to establish the highest principles of all philosophy, in which theoretical and practical reason are united. I have become a Spinozist! Don't be astonished. You will soon hear how.”
Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) said by 1677 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Friedrich Wilhelm Schelling, in his letters to friend and former classmate Hegel, 1795 [original in German]
“Traditionally, in this country more than anywhere else, we have judged that the simple man, the hard-working man of the earth or the assembly line is the backbone of our morality. That it is he who will save us in times of stress. Well, that’s as outdated a philosophy as believing blacks all love watermelon.”
Harlan Ellison (1934–2018) said by 2018 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When I started Oracle, what I wanted to do was to create an environment where I would enjoy working. That was my primary goal. Sure, I wanted to make a living. I certainly never expected to become rich, certainly not this rich. I mean, rich does not even describe this. This is surreal.”
Larry Ellison (born 1944) first seen 1995 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Smithsonian Institution Oral and Visual Histories, Oral History Interview with Lawrence Ellison (24 October 1995).
“The Bush plan is economic treason against the American worker. That "civil rights leaders" are silent about the dispossession of the black working class, that unions are not marching to denounce this sellout of blue-collar and white-collar America, only tells us that the amorality of the transnational corporation has infected both. Solidarity be damned, it is all about money now.”
Pat Buchanan (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What is the moral argument for an affirmative action that justifies unending race discrimination against a declining white working class, who have become the expendables of our multicultural regime?”
Pat Buchanan (born 1938) first seen 2016 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Great White Hope" column as reprinted on official website (May 26, 2016).
“We must remember that the real problem is not how to produce some improvement in the condition of the working man— for that has to a certain extent been attained already— but how to secure his complete material independence.”
Arnold Toynbee (1852–1883) said by 1883 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Leninism is warlike from head to foot. War is impossible without cunning, without subterfuge. without deception of the enemy. Victorious war cunning is a constituent element of Leninist politics. But at the same time, Leninism is supreme revolutionary honesty toward the party and the working class. It admits of no fiction, no bubble-blowing, no pseudo-grandeur.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) first seen 1924 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The New Course (1924)
“It is only possible to safeguard the supremacy of the working class by forcing the bourgeoisie accustomed to rule, to realize that it is too dangerous an undertaking for it to revolt against the dictatorship of the proletariat, to undermine it by conspiracies, sabotage, insurrections, or the calling in foreign troops.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We communists know only one possession that is sacred — the life of the working man, the life of the worker, his wife and his children. That is the only possession which is sacred so far as we are concerned, and it gives us the right to do anything and everything.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In January 1928 the working class stood face to face with the shadow of an advancing famine. History knows how to play a spiteful jokes. In that very month, when the kulaks were taking the revolution by the throat, the representatives of the Left Opposition were thrown into prison or banished to different parts of Siberia in punishment for their "panic" before the specter of the kulak.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[On the question "Is bird imitation valid in jazz?"] I don’t know if it's valid in jazz, [...] but I enjoy it. It somehow comes in as part of the development of what I'm doing. Sometimes I can't do it. At home [in California] I used to play, and the birds always used to whistle with me. I would stop what I was working on and play with the birds.”
Eric Dolphy (1928–1964) first seen 1962 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dolphy and John Coltrane interviewed by Don DeMichael, as cited in "John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy Answer the Jazz Critics" DownBeat (April 12, 1962; online reprint from 2014)
“We can safely abandon the doctrine of the eighties, namely that the rich were not working because they had too little money, the poor because they had much.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) first seen 1991 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Guardian [UK] (20 November 1991)
“Bob Wilson admitted to himself that a Ph.D. and an appointment as an instructor was not his idea of existence. Still, it beat working for a living.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the army it takes an eight-man working party to help a brass hat blow his nose.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I would say the games that we're working on now, like the new Zelda: Twilight Princess, have hardcore content. And if you look at the Revolution's controllers, there's a nunchaku-style controller expansion that's really well suited to first-person shooters.”
Shigeru Miyamoto (born 1952) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Source: 2006 Issue of Maxim (Note: "Revolution" was the working name for the Wii)
“They are working on The Fantastic Four, The Silver Surfer, Iron Man, Dr. Strange, The Hulk— they're doing a sequel to Spider-Man, a sequel to X-Men, and probably a third sequel to Blade. They still haven't gotten around to Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.— they have to do the Ghost Rider.”
Stan Lee (1922–2018) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On characters he created in comic books which are being used as the basis of movies. Interview at the DareDevil movie premiere (February 2003).