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'm looking forward to working with Nick on something special one day. .... He has an amazing gift, a level of spirituality and self-realisation in his writing you don't often find. A Hemingway or Xavier Herbert of our time.”
Nick Cave (born 1957) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Source: Crowe praises Cave's 'Gladiator' script (2005)
“I collaborate with my wife on the songs, and every aspect of it, really— composing, and arranging, and recording, all that business. We have a rhythm and a way of working it. It's kind of like borrowing the same ten bucks from somebody over and over again. But when you live together, it makes it a lot easier, the pay back.”
Tom Waits (born 1949) first seen 2002 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interviewed on Fresh Air, 2002-05-21.
“Any damn fool can beg up some kind of job; it takes a wise man to make it without working.”
Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) said by 1994 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am hopeful that Antarctica in its symbolic robe of white will shine forth as a continent of peace as nations working together there in the cause of science set an example of international cooperation.”
Richard E. Byrd (1888–1957) first seen 1957 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Statement made during International Geophysical Year (IGY) operations in 1957, inscribed on the Byrd Memorial at McMurdo Station, Antarctica
“I thought "This is the pinnacle of life, to me: if [I] could do this-- y'know, if [I] could stand up on stage and make people laugh, that would be the ultimate accomplishment of my personality!" And I just thought "Laughs! To be working with laughs and jokes all the time: what a fun life that would be!”
Jerry Seinfeld (born 1954) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nobody's really getting in shape for anything. In modern society, you really don't have to be physically strong to do anything. The only reason that you're getting in shape is so you can get through the workout. So we're working out, so that we'll be in shape, for when we have to do our exercises. That's comedy.”
Jerry Seinfeld (born 1954) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Men, as an organization, are getting more women than any other group working anywhere in the world today! Wherever women are, we have men looking into the situation right now. We explored the Earth looking for women... even went to the Moon just to see if there [were] any women there. That's why we brought that little car. Why would you bring a car, unless there's some chance of going on a date?”
Jerry Seinfeld (born 1954) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I've probably been working on this [Pop Tart bit] for two years. [...] It's a long time to spend on something that means absolutely nothing. But that's what I do; that's what people want me to do, is spend a lot of time wastefully... so that then, I can then waste their time!”
Jerry Seinfeld (born 1954) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Working with the [Seinfeld] cast was pure heaven for me. We were as well suited to each other as it seems when you watch the show.”
Jerry Seinfeld (born 1954) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Truthfully, I loved working on every episode [of Seinfeld], we just had the best time and got along great, and there were a number of years when the show wasn't successful and we still loved it.”
Jerry Seinfeld (born 1954) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Scientific progress on a broad front results from the free play of free intellects, working on subjects of their own choice, in the manner dictated by their curiosity for exploration of the unknown. Freedom of inquiry must be preserved under any plan for Government support of science...”
Vannevar Bush (1890–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Chinese were highly civilised when the ancient Britons, to whom he belonged, were barbarian. This was an old, enlightened, and vast community of hard-working people, yet they were deprived of rights enjoyed by some of the smallest nations in the world that only a few centuries ago emerged from savagery.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1926 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Bradford (4 December 1926), quoted in The Times (6 December 1926), p. 9
“There was a tragic bitterness about the situation which developed through those days, and which forced a cleavage between me and colleagues with most of whom I had for long years been working in the happiest and most fruitful collaboration—a cleavage later on aggravated and perpetuated by the malice of petty-minded men with baneful effects on the future political development of our country.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As I am working for the public, I must continue to amuse them.”
Francisco Goya (1746–1828) first seen 1784 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: letter to his friend Don Martín Zapater, c. 1784; taken from Francisco Zapater y Gomez : Goya; Noticias biograficas, Zaragoza, 1868, La Perseverencia, p. 58
“One who has drunk at the fountain of spiritual happiness says good-by of his own accord to the satisfactions that come from a higher professional status … What is the greatest sign of success for a teacher thus transformed? It is to be able to say, "The children are now working as if I did not exist.”
Maria Montessori (1870–1952) said by 1952 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One day I noticed that I could go on working art my motif no matter what the weather might be. I no longer needed the sun, for I took my light everywhere with me.”
Georges Braque (1882–1963) first seen 1959 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 30 - Braque's quote from the book, written by John Rusell, London 1959
“With that being said, you are a Democrat. You are saying, "Let's cut and run." And I have to tell you, I have been nervous about this interview with you, because what I feel like saying is, "Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies." And I know you're not. I'm not accusing you of being an enemy, but that's the way I feel, and I think a lot of Americans will feel that way.”
Glenn Beck (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We have the State Department working together with Google, MTV, MSNBC, Facebook, all of these— all of these giant corporations. Google now has two executives that we know of that were charged to help this revolution.”
Glenn Beck (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Those who advocate devaluation are calling for a reduction in the wage levels and the real wage standards of every member of the working class.”
James Callaghan (1912–2005) first seen 1967 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chancellor stands by three per cent growth and no devaluation", The Times (25 July 1967), p. 13
“But the policies of the 1960s would not be successful today. No more would general import controls.They benefit some home industries at the expense of the livelihood of everyone working in exports. We would be robbing Peter to pay Paul.”
James Callaghan (1912–2005) first seen 1976 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at Woolwich (30 January 1976)
“Well, they’re Southern people, and if they know you are working at home they think nothing of walking right in for coffee. But they wouldn’t dream of interrupting you at golf.”
Harper Lee (1926–2016) first seen 1980 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On why she has done her best creative thinking while playing golf, as quoted in Time (12 May 1980)
“I’m no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and in the jury system — that is no ideal to me, it is a living, working reality. Gentlemen, a court is no better than each man of you sitting before me on this jury. A court is only as sound as its jury, and a jury is only as sound as the men who make it up.”
Harper Lee (1926–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You’ve never seen death? Look in the mirror every day and you will see it like bees working in a glass hive.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted by Ned Rorem The Dick Cavett Show (PBS) (6 October 1981)
“From the first day we are told in words we can handle what has come to be prized as the foundation of community and culture. Though the teacher may call these first lessons “simple rules,” they are in fact the distillation of all the hard-won, field-tested working standards of the human enterprise.”
Robert Fulghum (born 1937) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In prosperous times the mercantile classes often realize fortunes, which go far towards securing them against the future; but unfortunately the working classes, though they share in the general prosperity, do not share in it so largely as in the general adversity.”
Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834) said by 1834 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We all like to think of ourselves as a standard, and I can see that it is genuinely difficult for the English middle class to suppose that the working class is not desperately anxious to become just like itself. I am afraid this must be unlearned.”
Raymond Williams (1921–1988) first seen 1958 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Culture and Society (1958)
“Life, in her experience, had a kind of velvet luster. You looked at yourself from one perspective and all you saw was weirdness. Move your head a little bit, though, and everything looked reasonably normal. She believed she couldn't hurt anybody as long as she was only working.”
Jonathan Franzen (born 1959) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I could fill an entire second life with working on my prints.”
M. C. Escher (1898–1972) said by 1972 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[O]ne reporter... is intrepidly meticulous and he blows the story... [A]ll the cable shows, everybody goes wild with derision as the story unfolds... [T]he overreaction is massive slaughter of the rats. They keep coming. They keep breeding... working overtime... and that is what gets people's attention about Congress.”
Ralph Nader (born 1934) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is but one special interest that we should be working for, and that would solve just about all of our problems, and that is our liberty.”
Ron Paul (born 1935) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech on the Patriot Act, 2003
“Dear young people, we have seen that it is the Holy Spirit who brings about the wonderful communion of believers in Jesus Christ. True to his nature as giver and gift alike, he is even now working through you. Let unifying love be your measure; abiding love your challenge; self-giving love your mission!”
Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Uncertainty over working conditions caused by mobility and deregulation, when it becomes endemic, tends to create new forms of psychological instability, giving rise to difficulty in forging coherent life-plans, including that of marriage.”
Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I do not mind if I lose my soul for all eternity. If the kind of God exists Who would damn me for not working out a deal with Him, then that is unfortunate. I should not care to spend eternity in the company of such a person.”
Mary McCarthy (1912–1989) said by 1989 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Most writers are trying to find what they think or feel. . . not simply working from the given, but toward the given, saying the unsayable and steadily asking, "What do I really feel about this?”
Robert Penn Warren (1905–1989) first seen 1967 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: National Observer (6 February 1967)
“This old aristocracy and Church-ridden, and tradition-ridden country will never grow wiser. Whilst we are fighting for supremacy in Europe the [United] States are working, and not fighting for it, but winning it all over the world.”
John Bright (1811–1889) first seen 1853 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Cobden (30 December 1853), quoted in G. M. Trevelyan, The Life of John Bright (1913), p. 230
“I am not working for failure, but for success, and for a real gain, and I must go the way to get it. I am sure the putting manhood suffrage in the Bill is not the way to get it. This has been done by the Chartists, and by the Complete Suffragists, but what has become of their Bills?”
John Bright (1811–1889) first seen 1858 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Joseph Sturge (2 February 1858), quoted in G. M. Trevelyan, The Life of John Bright (1913), p. 270
“The Duke, always right in his purpose but generally wrong in his practice, had stayed at home working all the morning, thereby scandalising the strict, and had gone to church alone in the afternoon, thereby offending the social.”
Anthony Trollope (1815–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In truth, men speak too much of danger. Let others be terrified by the natural and healthy risks of life! We shall not be frightened! Poison sumac grows in a hard-working man's field, the serpent hisses from its hidden den, and the owl's eye shines in the belfry, but the sun goes on lighting the sky, and truth continues marching across the earth unscathed.”
José Martí (1853–1895) said by 1895 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Because I don't believe that the government of Iran is a dictatorship I have no problem about working for Press TV in London which is a British owned television station. I'm not responsible for the government of Ahmedinijad. I'm not responsible for the leadership of Press TV.”
George Galloway (born 1954) first seen 2011 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speaking to London School of Economics students (7 March 2011), as cited in "George Galloway: Gaza war as bad as WW2", The Jewish Chronicle (9 March 2011).
“All of our problems are the result of overbreeding among the working class, and if morality is to mean anything at all to us, we must regard all the changes which tend toward the uplift and survival of the human race as moral.”
Margaret Sanger (1879–1966) first seen 1918 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Morality and Birth Control" (February-March 1918), pp. 11, 14.
“Always remember the objects you are working with. When you make a bridge, remember you are putting steel on stone and dirt. … Some day you will write poems to a little girl: marks with ink on paper. … When you are making love, you are moving flesh against flesh. That is the basis of all magic. (p. 30)”
Samuel R. Delany (born 1942) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The legislator commands the future; to be feeble will avail him nothing: it is for him to will what is good and to perpetuate it; to make man what he desires to be: for the laws, working upon the social body, which is inert in itself, can produce either virtue or crime, civilized customs or savagery.”
Louis Antoine de Saint-Just (1767–1794) first seen 1793 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Discours sur la Constitution à donner à la France, speech to the National Convention (April 24, 1793).
“The courtiers in the corporate press are working feverishly, day and night, to distract us from reality. The moment the elites are forced to acknowledge social inequality as the root of our discontent is the moment they are forced to acknowledge their role in orchestrating this inequality.”
Chris Hedges (born 1956) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What terrible sins I have working for me. I suppose it's the wages.”
Peter Cook (1937–1995) said by 1995 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Fun is the pivotal point of our existence. Fun is what the United States is based on. The thing is, when you are working all night in the studio, is it possible to have fun?”
David Lee Roth (born 1954) first seen 1986 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Iain Blair (August/September, 1986) "The Meaning of Life: If anyone knows, it's Diamond Dave Lee Roth", Rock Express (Canada).
“Most people depend on the internet and cellphones to survive, but what happens when they stop working? I wanted to create a mother and child who wouldn't be defeated by life without them.”
Hayao Miyazaki (born 1941) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (2009) Independent News article 2009
“It turns out that teaching is one of those things like raising a kid or working out—sometimes amazing, often difficult and painful, but, in hindsight, amazing.”
Cory Doctorow (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Rule of Optimization: Prototype before polishing. Get it working before you optimize it.”
Eric S. Raymond (born 1957) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I never had much of a vocabulary. In fact, my friend Bob Schneider would still be alive today if I'd known the difference between "antidote" and "anecdote". He got bitten by a copperhead, and I'm telling him funny stories out of Reader's Digest. His head started to swell, I said "This ain't working". He goes, "READ FASTER!!”
“Bourgeois class domination is undoubtedly an historical necessity, but, so too, the rising of the working class against it. Capital is an historical necessity, but, so too, its grave digger, the socialist proletariat.”
Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919) first seen 1915 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Junius Pamphlet (1915)