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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“I found the most convincing part to be the working stiffs, the guys who have a modest home and kids who go to public schools. They make $75,000 to $100,000 a year. That's not much to live on. I don't have to tell you that.”
Jack Valenti (1921–2007) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Discussing the plausibility of anti-piracy advertisements featuring wealthy Hollywood figures. Entertainment Weekly (18 April 2003)
“Legacy code" is a term often used derogatorily to characterize code that is written in a language or style that (1) the speaker/writer consider outdated and/or (2) is competing with something sold/promoted by the speaker/writer. "Legacy code" often differs from its suggested alternative by actually working and scaling.”
Bjarne Stroustrup (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Kareen was by no means sure Mark was a potential husband. He was still working his heart out on becoming a potential human being.”
Lois McMaster Bujold (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The young people, who were all Canadians, immediately formed themselves into a committee of the whole, from which they elected a working committee, which discussed the matter for about an hour, though as it was a committee the time seemed to be a year and a day.”
Robertson Davies (1913–1995) first seen 1972 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Three Warning Circles (1972).
“* "The old chess is you're banging your head against the wall with this theory. (...) You were trying to find some little improvement on move 18 or 20. It's ridiculous. It gets harder and harder and harder. You need more and more computers. You need more and more people working for you." 2005”
Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Point one and point two by the end of the week had become official government policy. As for converting them to Christianity, I think it might be a good idea to get them on some sort of hobby other than slaughtering infidels. I mean perhaps that's the Peace Corps, perhaps it's working for Planned Parenthood, but I've never seen the transforming effect of anything like that of Christianity.”
Ann Coulter (born 1961) first seen 2002 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with Katie Couric, on Today, quoted in "Coulter Declares 'Slander' In Couric 'Today' Show Match" in The Drudge Report (June 26, 2002).
“In fairness to Edwards, asking a trial lawyer to name his favorite moral leader is like asking the president of Iran to name his favorite Jew. (Answer: George Soros.) If you're keeping score, that's two major religions the Democrats lack a working knowledge of — Christianity and Islam.”
Ann Coulter (born 1961) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: No Wonder They're Afraid of Brit Hume" (May 3, 2007).
“[Harry, to Thelma, about Janet] "She never really figured out how the world is put together but she's still working at it.”
John Updike (1932–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“After many years of working with and listening to American adolescents, I don't believe they are ready for sex or its potential consequences – parenthood, abortion, sexually transmitted diseases – and I think we need to do everything in our power to discourage sexual activity and encourage abstinence.”
Hillary Clinton (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You have to stand up to bullies. You have to keep working to make things better, even when the odds are long and the opposition is fierce.”
Hillary Clinton (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I hope the fact-checkers are turning up the volume and really working hard. Donald supported the invasion of Iraq.”
Hillary Clinton (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We're working with NATO, the longest military alliance in the history of the world, to really turn our attention to terrorism.”
Hillary Clinton (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My successor, John Kerry, and President Obama got a deal that put a lid on Iran's nuclear program without firing a single shot. That's diplomacy. That's coalition-building. That's working with other nations.”
Hillary Clinton (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The only satisfaction may be that the system is working. That all of the efforts by Donald Trump his allies and his enablers to try to silence the truth, to try to undermine democracy, have been brought into the light and justice is being pursued.”
Hillary Clinton (born 1947) first seen 2023 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speaking with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC (August 14, 2023) as news of the indictment against Donald Trump in Georgia was breaking, as cited in "Hillary Clinton feels 'profound sadness' over Trump's many indictments", The Gu…
“We have watered the trees that blossom in the summer-time. Now let's sprinkle those whose flowering-time is past. That will be a better deed, because we shall not be working for a reward.”
Kalidasa (active around 400) first seen 1912 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Act 1 (tr. Arthur W. Ryder, 1912)
“I am a believer in unconscious cerebration. The brain is working all the time, though we do not know it. At night it follows up what we think in the daytime. When I have worked a long time on one thing, I make it a point to bring all the facts regarding it together before I retire; I have often been surprised at the results... We are thinking all the time; it is impossible not to think.”
Alexander Graham Bell (1847–1922) said by 1922 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When . . . some leisurely passer-by stopped . . . and spoke of cheating, that was in its way the stupidest lie ever invented by indifference and inborn malice, since it was not the hunger artist who was cheating, he was working honestly, but the world was cheating him of his reward.”
Franz Kafka (1883–1924) said by 1924 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We would not have invaded a country that did not attack us. We would not have taken money from the working families and given it to the most wealthy families. We would not be trying to control and intimidate the news media. We would not be routinely torturing people.”
Al Gore (born 1948) first seen 2000 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Commenting to reporters in Sweden on how the US would have been different if he had won the controversial 2000 election, as quoted in "Gore: 'Absolutely no plans' to run again for president" USA Today (12 October 2005)
“These are the reasons I drink The reasons I tell everybody I'm fine even though I am not These are the reasons I overdo it I have been working since I can remember, since I was single digits Now, even though I've been busted I don't know where to draw the line 'cause that groove has gotten so deep.”
Alanis Morissette (born 1974) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“People at the top do not want to share their power. They’ve always got some marvellous reason: I’m following my religion; I’m following the laws of economics. Even Stalin: I’m representing the vanguard of the working class, so please don’t cause trouble. That is the battle that every generation has, and yet we mustn’t be pessimistic about it...”
Tony Benn (1925–2014) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Tony Benn interview “Hope is the key, Share International” (January 2003)
“I was at ground zero as often, if not more, than most of the workers. I was there working with them. I was there guiding things. I was there bringing people there. But I was exposed to exactly the same things they were exposed to. So in that sense, I'm one of them.”
Rudy Giuliani (born 1944) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: While campaigning in Cincinnati, as quoted in The New York Times (11 August 2007)
“For the first time I am working on a book that is not limited and that will take every bit of experience and thought and feeling that I have.”
John Steinbeck (1902–1968) first seen 1938 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Journal entry (11 June 1938), published in Working Days: The Journals of The Grapes of Wrath, 1938-1941 (1990) edited by Robert DeMott
“What no wife of a writer can ever understand, no matter if she lives with him for twenty years, is that a writer is working when he's staring out the window.”
Burton Rascoe (1892–1957) first seen 1948 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted by Bennett Cerf in Shake Well Before Using (1948)
“King Lear is a working model of the process of denudation by which men translate themselves from a world of roles to a world of jobs. (p. 16)”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No serious student who studies the history of the last half century can deny the ferment of ideas associated with the names of Marx, Engels and Lenin. Their effectiveness in arming the minds of working-class leaders all over the world with intellectual weapons showed that their teaching had an organic relationship with the political and social realities of their time.”
Aneurin Bevan (1897–1960) said by 1960 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As far as service goes, it can take the form of a million things. To do service, you don't have to be a doctor working in the slums for free, or become a social worker. Your position in life and what you do doesn't matter as much as how you do what you do.”
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (1926–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Another Door Opens (2006) by Jeffrey A. Wands. p. 29
“As I grow older I grow calm. If I feel what are perhaps an old man's apprehensions, that competition from new races will cut deeper than working men's disputes and will test whether we can hang together or can fight.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) said by 1935 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Anybody here think they could move to Austria, learn the language, become famous for working out, then be a movie star, then marry into their royalty, and hold public office? How many lifetimes would you need… I’m on my third attempt at Rosetta Stone Spanish. All right? How can I judge these guys? I can barely handle the temptations of Facebook.”
Arnold Schwarzenegger (born 1947) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Bill Burr, You People Are All the Same (2012)
“I'm a classic example of all humorists — only funny when I'm working.”
Peter Sellers (1925–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in I Am Your Father : What Every Heart Needs to Know (2010) by Mark Stibbe
“I writhe when I see myself on the screen. I'm such a dreadfully clumsy hulking image. I say to myself, "Why doesn't he get off? Why doesn't he get off?" I mean, I look like such an idiot. Some fat awkward thing dredged up from some third-rate drama company. I must stop thinking about it, otherwise I shan't be able to go on working.”
Peter Sellers (1925–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Their choice of material was always very much to do with what they were thinking as architecture students. Rather unexciting people, I would've thought, primarily. I mean, anybody walking into an art school like that would've been tricked--maybe they were working their entry into an art school.”
Syd Barrett (1946–2006) first seen 1971 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Syd Barrett interview in Melody Maker, 1971-03-27
“The antisemitism smear sword that was wielded at the behest of the Israeli government, specifically aimed at Jeremy Corbyn because he was left wing and he might turn into a political leader on the left in the United Kingdom who would actually stand up for human rights in general but specifically the rights of working people to represent themselves and have unions.”
Roger Waters (born 1943) first seen 2021 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From Let's Talk It Over, a monthly online debate, as cited in "Roger Waters defends Ken Loach", The Jewish Chronicle (17 March 2021)
“The method of scientific investigation is nothing but the expression of the necessary mode of working of the human mind.”
Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) first seen 1863 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Our Knowledge of the Causes of the Phenomena of Organic Nature" (1863)
“The greater part of the substance of the following Essays has already been published in the form of Oral Discourses, addressed to widely different audiences, during the past three years. Upon the subject of the second Essay, I delivered six Lectures to the Working Men in 1860, and two, to the members of the Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh in 1862.”
Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) said by 1895 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Governments don't protect you. They can't. All they can do is promise to make the person who hurts you pay for his crime — if they can catch him. The criminal won't pay you back, of course, so they punish him only as a deterrent to future crime. If you think the deterrent is working, why is crime always such a public issue?”
Harry Browne (1933–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Never was there a more perfect demonstration of the truth asserted by Daniel Webster, that, of all contrivances for defrauding the working people of a country, arbitrary issues of paper money are the most effective.”
Andrew Dickson White (1832–1918) said by 1918 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is a dilemma in any High Standard of Living in a profit economy. I am referring to the embarrassing truth that the best things in life are free. ... things like friendly competitive sports, friendly gambling, love-making and sex, solitary study and reading, contemplation of nature and cosmos, art-working, music, religion.”
Paul Goodman (1911–1972) first seen 1962 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Leisure and Work" (1962)
“In those days [1955], affirmative action was for whites only. I might still be working for the grocery store in the small Texas town where I grew up were it not for affirmative action for Southern white boys.”
Bill Moyers (1934–2025) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Help", speech to the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (3 March 2007), in Moyers on Democracy (2008), p. 99
“Emotional appeals about working families trying to get by on $4.25 an hour [the minimum wage in 1996] are hard to resist. Fortunately, such families do not exist.”
Tom DeLay (born 1947) first seen 1996 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From the Congressional Record, H3706 [1996 April 23] .
“And people say to me, they say Jesus wasn't Jewish. I say of course he was Jewish. Thirty years old, single, living at home with his parents? Come on! Working in his father's business, his mother thought he was God's gift? He's Jewish! Give it up! It's an old tradition!”
Robin Williams (1951–2014) said by 2014 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I’m going to take you out tonight,” he said. “Another Heisenberg dinner.” “What’s that?” “Uncertainty,” Edward said crisply. “We know where we are going, but not what we are going to eat. Or vice versa.” “Sounds wonderful. Which car?” “The Quantum, of course.” “Oh, Lord. We just had the speedometer fixed.” “And the steering went out?” “Shh! It’s still working. We’re cheating.”
Greg Bear (1951–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But it isn’t just a matter of faith, but of faith and works. Each is necessary. For the demons also believe — you heard the apostle — and tremble (Jas 2:19); but their believing doesn’t do them any good. Faith alone is not enough, unless works too are joined to it: Faith working through love (Gal 5:6), says the apostle.”
Augustine of Hippo (354–430) said by 430 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When a person, by his reprehensible behavior, practically cries out to be destroyed, it is truly your moral obligation to indulge them their wish. The person who takes every opportunity to "pick on" others is often mistakenly called "sadistic". In reality, this person is a misdirected masochist who is working towards his own destruction.”
Anton LaVey (1930–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Pride is great up to the point you begin to throw out the baby with the bathwater. The rule of Satanism is: if it works for you, great. When it stops working for you, when you’ve painted yourself into a corner and the only way out is to say, I’m sorry, I made a mistake, I wish we could compromise somehow, then do it.”
Anton LaVey (1930–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Our guys working this area for a living all believe Chalabi and all those guys in their Bond Street suits are charlatans. To take them for a source of anything except a fantasy trip would be a real stretch. But it's an article of faith among those with no military experience that the Iraqi military is low-hanging fruit.”
Scott Ritter (born 1961) first seen 2002 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Knight Ridder, 1 November 2002
“Sometimes my courage fails me and I think I ought to stop working, live in the country and devote myself to gardening. But I am held by a thousand bonds, and I don't know when I shall be able to arrange things otherwise. Nor do I know whether, even by writing scientific books, I could live without the laboratory.”
Marie Curie (1867–1934) said by 1934 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Today in science history(September 19, 2026)
“I've always wanted to make the world a more rational place. I'm still working on it.”
Penn Jillette (born 1955) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 10 Questions: Penn Jillette", IGN (18 June 2003)
“To state a timetable now would simply paralyze the proper working of government, put at risk the changes we are making for Britain and damage the country.”
Tony Blair (born 1953) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Prime Minister's monthly press conference May 2006, Prime Minister's website.
“One class has fulfilled its historical mission and is about to yield to another. The bourgeoisie has to yield to the working class ... Whatever is about to fall should be pushed. We are all soldiers of the revolution. We want the workers' victory over filthy lucre. That is socialism.”
Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in Doctor Goebbels: His Life and Death, Roger Manvell, Heinrich Fraenkel, New York, NY, Skyhorse Publishing, 2010 p. 25, conversation with Hertha Holk
“Socialism is the doctrine of liberation for the working class. It promotes the rise of the fourth class and its incorporation in the political organism of our Fatherland, and is inextricably bound to breaking the present slavery and regaining German freedom. Socialism, therefore, is not merely a matter of the oppressed class, but a matter for everyone.”
Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source