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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“Football is now all about money. There are problems with the values within the game. And this is sad because football is the most beautiful game. We can play it in the street. We can play it everywhere. Everyone can play it but those values are being lost. We have to bring them back.”
Johan Cruyff (1947–2016) first seen 2014 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In an interview with The Guardian's Donald McRae in September 2014.
“Our speech has ceased to speak, it shouts; it says cute, not beautiful, colossal, not great; it cannot find the right word any more, because the word is no longer the designation of an object, but the echo of some kind of gossip about the object.”
Paul de Lagarde (1827–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Zum Unterrichtsgesetze,” as cited in The Politics of Cultural Despair (1961), p. 31
“Every time I went to a family gathering, I was the boy who made it. I was a Professor at Harvard and everybody stood around in awe and listened to my every word, and all I felt was that horror that I knew inside that I didn't know. Of course, it was all such beautiful, gentle horror, because there was so much reward involved.”
Ram Dass (1931–2019) said by 2019 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We’re taught in the Jewish tradition the same story over and over, whether it’s the Holocaust or the Maccabees, we have to rise above persecution and do our best, just as the magic is about making people dream, we learned to take things that aren’t supposed to be and turn them into something beautiful.”
David Copperfield (illusionist) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Southwest was spectacular, but I have no interest in moving there. North Carolina is beautiful in spring and fall. But I can say I didn't find anyplace I'd rather live than Maine.”
Angus King (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Then in my heart a fear Cried out, "A life — why, beautiful, why dead!" It was a mite that held itself most dear, So small I could have drowned it with a tear.”
Karl Shapiro (1913–2000) first seen 1956 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interludes" III, in From Darkness To Light : A Confession of Faith in the form of an Anthology (1956) edited by Victor Gollancz
“No matter what our transgressions have been, no matter how much our actions may have hurt others, that guilt can all be wiped out. To me, perhaps the most beautiful phrase in all scripture is when the Lord said, “Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more.”
Boyd K. Packer (1924–2015) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Atonement Boyd K. Packer, General Conference, Oct 2012
“At another level, market crashes constitute beautiful examples of events that we would all like to forecast. The arrow of time is inexorably projecting us toward the undetermined future. Predicting the future captures the imagination of all and is perhaps the greatest challenge.”
Didier Sornette (born 1957) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I've concluded that bittersweetness is not, as we tend to think, just a momentary feeling or event. It's also a quiet force, a way of being, a storied tradition—as dramatically overlooked as it is brimming with human potential. It's an authentic and elevating response to the problem of being alive in a deeply flawed yet stubbornly beautiful world.”
Susan Cain (born 1968) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We like art forms that express our longing for union, and for a more perfect and beautiful world.”
Susan Cain (born 1968) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We listen to sad music for the same reason we go to church or synagogue or the mosque. We long for the Garden of Eden, we long for Mecca, we long for Zion because we come into this world with the sense that there is a more perfect and beautiful world to which we belong, where we are no longer.”
Susan Cain (born 1968) first seen 2022 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mineo, Liz (interviewer). "That feeling you get when listening to sad music? It’s humanity". The Harvard Gazette. May 11, 2022.
“We’ve become a race of engineers. What we never seem to understand is that after it’s time to railroad, there’s time to build a beautiful railroad. The state of the art has advanced enough; we can afford to pay a small penalty in efficiency.”
John Varley (1947–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“She just took off running to the old Perkins place. He couldn't help turning to watch. She ran as though it was her nature. It reminded him of the flight of wild ducks in the autumn. So smooth. The word "beautiful" came to his mind, but he shook it away and hurried up to his house.”
Katherine Paterson (born 1932) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Why don't we change our clothes and watch TV or something over at your house?" He felt like hugging her. "I'll make us some coffee," he said joyfully. "Yuk," she said smiling and began to run for the old Perkins place, that beautiful, graceful run of hers that neither mud nor water could defeat.”
Katherine Paterson (born 1932) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am Rita Dove, the beautiful dove. See my black neck, see my speck. My ass is not so much cracked but i want to get out now. The poet, am I. Am me.”
Rita Dove (born 1952) first seen 1988 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: America, 1988
“If you could have walked on the planet before humans lived here, maybe the Ivory Coast would have seemed more beautiful than La Côte d'Azur.”
Dejan Stojanovic (born 1959) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“While gazing at myself from yourself, I was beautiful.”
Dejan Stojanovic (born 1959) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To leave out beautiful sunsets is the secret of good taste.”
Dejan Stojanovic (born 1959) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have to come to terms with the fact that I am not good at human relationships. I've known some wonderful women and I have beautiful children but I've probably disappointed them all. I regret that.”
Shaun Ellis (born 1977) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Surely you’ll at least see the Temple? Respect all religions, is my motto, believe in none. Sensible principle. Still, you know, must say, after all, two thousand beautiful priestesses! All ready, willing, able—and I must say—dextrous!— to do their best to inspire male worshippers with love for their goddess, hah-hah!”
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Tagore once said– art has to be beautiful, but, before that, it has to be truthful. Now, what is truth? There is no eternal truth. Every artist has to learn private truth though a painful private process. And that is what he has to convey.”
Ritwik Ghatak (1925–1976) said by 1976 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That’s the difference between the old Scientology and the new: the brave new Scientology is all these beautiful buildings and real estate and no people.”
Mark Rathbun (born 1957) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We've got to step up our conservation efforts before it's too late. We're not protecting our lands and natural resources. Take the Grand Canyon for example; I'm sure that at one time it was a beautiful piece of land, and just look at the way we've let it go.”
Pat Paulsen (1927–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We are told we should love only the good and the beautiful, and these are defined for us so narrowly. Monday I will be 31. Maybe it has taken me this long to discover that we are liable to love anything-like characters in old Greek stories who set eyes on an oak tree or a bucket and fall in love hopelessly, there are no limits to our love.”
Leslie Marmon Silko (born 1948) first seen 1979 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: from 1979 letter collected in The Delicacy and Strength of Lace edited by Anne Wright (1985)
“To your utmost, listen to every beautiful song As though filling all the self with sound and melody One should plunge head-first into life As one dives from a cliff into the emerald sea”
Ataol Behramoğlu (born 1942) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Could this be what people were fighting over, the many possessions that surrounded him? These objects with so much value and so little use? He thought how the sweep of a hand or the lick of a flame and they would be broken and burned. Maybe it was the weak and the fragile and the beautiful that made you the craziest and made you fight the hardest.”
Robert Olmstead (born 1954) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A beautiful 35-year old ain't as good-looking as an ugly 19-year old.”
Patrice O'Neal (1969–2011) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: September 24, 2008
“Dahlink, the legs aren't so beautiful. I just know what to do with them.”
Marlene Dietrich (1901–1992) first seen 1969 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speaking with publicist Peter Rogers, circa 1969, as quoted in The Blackglama Story (1979) by Rogers, reproduced in "At Last! The story behind the legends... and the war of the minks; Marlene Dietrich" by Ricki Fulman, …
“Melancholy sees the worst of things,—things as they may be, and not as they are. It looks upon a beautiful face, and sees but a grinning skull.”
Christian Nestell Bovee (1820–1904) said by 1904 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Things are never beautiful by themselves but appear so to anyone who projects on to them his superabundance of life. But just as unconscious activity is unaware of itself as such, so man ‘forgets himself’ as the cause of these ‘beauties’ and imagines that the world itself is laden with them.”
Sarah Kofman (1934–1994) said by 1994 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The elderly woman's husband said, What is in his mind? He thinks because he was once a poor boy in a poor country and he became very rich with a beautiful wife, he thinks he can bend steel with his teeth.”
Grace Paley (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No, George said, you don’t understand. The pinball machine--any pinball machine you play in any penny arcade--is so remarkable, so fine, so shrewdly threaded. It is already beautiful in necessity and sufficiency of wire, connection, possibility.”
Grace Paley (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“children’s writing is so often so beautiful, because it’s so close to their own true tongues. On the other hand, it’s very boring because they have no experience in life.”
Grace Paley (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I read poetry all the time. Probably the poets everybody read then. Very catholic taste. I even loved Eliot then whom I later grew not to love. I knew lots of poems by memory and walked around mumbling them. Yeats, Rilke, Keats, Coleridge. I liked Milton a lot, for some reason. And then there were the Oscar Williams anthologies of 1942 and 1943 with those pictures of the beautiful young poets.”
Grace Paley (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Both God and man hold each other in equally beautiful contempt.”
Michael Bishop (1945–2023) said by 2023 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Dirty, stained, withered, broken things seem beautiful to me.”
Yohji Yamamoto (born 1943) first seen 2002 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Kiyokazu Washida. The Past, the Feminine, the Vain in Talking to Myself (2002), Ch. 3: Feedom or the Vain.
“Not everything that’s beautiful is weak.”
Kameron Hurley (born 1980) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself and watch yourself softly becoming the author of something beautiful even if it is only a floating ash.”
Norman Maclean (1902–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“She slapped Kestrel's face. Without thinking twice, Kestrel slapped her back, as hard as she could. The young woman burst into tears. The servant saw this, aghast. "Baby!" she exclaimed. "Oh, my poor baby!" "You've been kind to me," said Kestrel, "and you're very beautiful, but if you hit me again I'll kill you.”
William Nicholson (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I used to adore my old man because he was always so kind. That's one of the most beautiful things I have in my life — the way my father and mother were. And my father was a real ugly man. So it doesn't matter if you look like a gorilla. You see, dogs like us, we ain't such dogs as we think we are.”
Paddy Chayefsky (1923–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Milo Venus was a beautiful lass, She had the world in the palm of her hand. But she lost both her arms in a wrestling match, To get a brown eyed handsome man.”
Chuck Berry (1926–2017) first seen 1958 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Brown Eyed Handsome Man" (1958), Pop Chronicles Show 5 - Hail, Hail, Rock 'n' Roll: The rock revolution gets underway. Part 1.
“Beautiful Delilah, dressed in the latest style Swingin' like a pendulum, walkin' down the aisle Deep romantic eyes, speak so low in miles Maybe she will settle down and marry after a while”
Chuck Berry (1926–2017) first seen 1958 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Beautiful Delilah" (1958)
“God doesn't make mistakes. So if I'm supposed to die, there's a very good reason for it. I'm not going to question him. I'm just going to enjoy all these beautiful things that God created.”
Ben Carson (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Those who saw him hushed. On Church Street. Liberty. Cortlandt. West Street. Fulton. Vesey. It was a silence that heard itself, awful and beautiful.”
Colum McCann (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To make something beautiful is revolutionary (not low class, not easy, not a sign of low intelligence).”
Beth Anderson (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I was honoured to be on our next performer’s new video. And if I ever record an album, I want this guy to produce it and make me beautiful duets, ‘cause he’s a freakin’ genius!”
Anna Nicole Smith (1967–2007) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Anna Nicole Smith (2004) cited in: Cyril H. Wecht, Dawna Kaufmann (2009) A question of murder: compelling cases from a famed forensic pathologist. p. 99
“Our nation is exceptional because it was built on the five most beautiful and powerful words in the English language, "I want to be free.”
“Love, where did You enter the heart unseen? Lovable Love, joyful Love, unthinkable Love, In Your plenitude You lie far beyond the reach of reason. Love, jocund and joyous, Divine fire, You do not stint Of your endlessly beautiful riches”
Jacopone da Todi (1230–1307) said by 1307 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To people who've been looked at and considered beautiful, particularly women who relied on it so much... age is quite a challenge. The thing which you've always used, a power, is taken away from you.”
Julie Christie (born 1940) first seen 1997 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Reflecting on ageing when she was approaching fifty" as quoted in Sheila Rowbotham A Century of Women: The History of Women in Britain and the United States (1997), Viking, p. 475
“(My mother) loved Madea…She told me whatever you do, don't stop playing this character. She loved Madea. My mother, even though we look alike, she was a much more beautiful version of this character for sure.”
Tyler Perry (born 1969) first seen 2019 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On his mother’s love for his popular character Madea in “Tyler Perry explains why he's retiring his beloved Madea character” in CNN (2019 Mar 1)