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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“The working class will acquire the sense of the new discipline, the freely assumed self-discipline of the Social Democracy, not as a result of the discipline imposed on it by the capitalist state, but by extirpating, to the last root, its old habits of obedience and servility.”
Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919) said by 1919 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If I chose to have a nanny, I'd be able to pay to have a nanny - a lot of women don't have that opportunity. I don't feel like I'm a working single mom, because I have that option that a lot of people don't have.”
Gillian Anderson (born 1968) first seen 2002 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Alasdair Ferguson (June 7, 2002) "As The X-Files ends, I realise how much", The Express.
“I take a much more pragmatic view than many people on the Left about working with Neil Kinnock. Kinnock represents the best vehicle possible for achieving socialism now.”
Ken Livingstone (born 1945) first seen 1986 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ham and High (21 February, 1986).
“I am not a career politician. I'm not a Democrat. I'm not a Republican. I'm a working man with commonsense ideas and goals. I describe myself politically as fiscally conservative and socially moderate-to-liberal.”
Jesse Ventura (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I get very disturbed when I see people demonstrating with signs that say "Welfare Rights." There is nothing in the Constitution that says you have a right to welfare! Do you know what welfare is? It's taking money from someone who is working to give to someone who's not!”
Jesse Ventura (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The United States and Europe have perfected the art of arguing for free trade while simultaneously working for trade agreements that protect themselves against imports from developing countries. [...] Western negotiators almost take it for granted that they can control what gets discussed, and determine the outcomes.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You must aim high, not in what you are going to do at some future date, but in what you are going to make yourself do to-day. Otherwise, working is just a waste of time.”
Edgar Degas (1834–1917) first seen 1904 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: a remark to E. Rouart [son of Henri Rouart in 1904; as quoted in Renoir – his life and work, Francois Fosca, Book Club Associates /Thames and Hudson Ltd, London 1975, p. 274
“Even working from nature you have to compose.”
Edgar Degas (1834–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“pinkish and bluish draperies on neutral grey grounds and black cypresses... ...The red of Jeptha's dress... ...some reddish brown, some slightly pinkish... ...Graduated blue sky... ...the ground at the front a grey violet shadow... Look for some turquoise in the blue.(Degas' working note about choosing colors for his future painting 'The Daughter of Jeptha')”
Edgar Degas (1834–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from Degas' working notes; as quoted in The private lives of the Impressionists, Sue Roe, Harpen Collins Publishers, New York 2006, p. 34
“For human nature, being more highly pitched, selved, and distinctive than anything in the world, can have been developed, evolved, condensed, from the vastness of the world not anyhow or by the working of common powers but only by one of finer or higher pitch and determination than itself.”
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889) said by 1889 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Do I believe in God? Yes, when I am working. When I am submissive and modest, I feel myself to be greatly helped by someone who causes me to do things that exceed my capabilities. However, I cannot acknowledge him because it is as if I were to find myself before a conjuror whose sleight of hand eludes me.”
Henri Matisse (1869–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If I had my way, I would build a lethal chamber as big as the Crystal Palace, with a military band playing softly, and a Cinematograph working brightly; then I’d go out in the back streets and main streets and bring them in, all the sick, the halt, and the maimed; I would lead them gently, and they would smile me a weary thanks; and the band would softly bubble out the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’.”
D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930) first seen 1880 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Blanche Jennings (9 October 1908), Letters of D.H. Lawrence (1979), James T. Boulton, ed., as quoted in The Intellectuals and the Masses: Pride and Prejudice Among the Literary Intelligentsia, 1880-1939 (1992)…
“An ordinary physical action of the Avatar releases immense forces in the inner planes and so becomes the starting point for a chain of working, therepercussions and overtones of which are manifest at all levels and are universal in range and effect.”
Meher Baba (1894–1969) said by 1969 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Further it is mentioned that if you want to kill an idea in the world today, get a Committee working on it. Adds J.B. Hughes, "If Moses had been a Committee, the Israelites would still be in Egypt.”
Peter de Noronha (1897–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There seems to be a lot of love-hate relationships in Fiji today, between so many and the media, simply because there are so many negative reporting and a serious lack of understanding on journalists' part on working on reports or their stories. I am actually hoping for more from the Fiji media and the region, we need a whole lot more positive reporting.”
Asenaca Caucau wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What is the price, we ask the other side? What is the price that you want from these working men and women? What cost? How much more do we have to give to the private sector and to business? How many billion dollars more, are you asking, are you requiring? When does the greed stop, we ask the other side? That’s the question and that’s the issue.”
Ted Kennedy (1932–2009) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Senate speech (25 January 2007)
“Many U.S. troops occupy countries that are no threat to the U.S. and many innocent civilians have been killed. I don’t find that heroic at all. But most “grunts” are from poor, working-class.... So they believe the recruiters and join the military. I see most of the U.S. military as victims, not heroes. Of course, no one statement covers everything adequately.”
Cindy Sheehan (born 1957) first seen 2017 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: ‘Bush Was No Better’ Than Donald Trump, Daily Beast (23 November 2017)
“Working within an educational system wherein the faculty was 90 percent white and the student body 90 percent non-white, a system wherein both the banking system of education and racially biased notions of brilliance and genius prevailed, I felt alienated from colleagues.”
Bell hooks (1952–2021) said by 2021 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I went in a round of the Domain on Saturday morning in a rally car. At the start of it, I was asked if I felt scared. I said, 'certainly not, I have been working with Roger for years'.”
David Lange (1942–2005) first seen 1987 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Source: Gliding on the Lino: The Wit of David Lange, compiled by David Barber, 1987.
“To Joseph Stalin: Stop sending people to kill me! We've already captured five of them, one of them with a bomb and another with a rifle... If you don't stop sending killers, I'll send a very fast working one to Moscow and I certainly won't have to send another.”
Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Robert Service, Stalin: A Biography (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005), p. 592.
“The women's movement is rooted in the belief that we don't even need men. All it will take is one natural disaster to prove how wrong that is. Then, the only thing holding this culture together will be masculine men of the working class. The cultural elite — women and men — will be pleading for the plumbers and the construction workers. We are such a parasitic class.”
Camille Paglia (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The main reason to exercise, he thought: It stops your brain working, lets your body remind you you’re still an animal. It was the only respite he got from being himself.”
Stephen Baxter (born 1957) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion. Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world.”
Mary Shelley (1797–1851) said by 1851 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Men think that self-sacrifice is the most charming of all the cardinal virtues for women, and in order to keep it in healthy working order, they make opportunities for its illustration as often as possible. I would fain teach women that self-development is a higher duty than self-sacrifice.”
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I'm still working, but we have to start by putting forward a diplomatic arrangement. This point obtained, we would have a good chance of success. For the moment, the Belgian shipping word in China should not be used at any price.”
Leopold II of Belgium (1835–1909) first seen 1853 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: All the King's Men' A search for the colonial ideas of some advisers and "accomplices" of Leopold II (1853-1892). (Hannes Vanhauwaert), 5. A prospectus by the military Chazal and Brialmont, The Importance of General Cha…
Also quoted by: Pierre Emmanuel Félix Chazal
“What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they [the Hurricane Katrina refugees in the Houston Astrodome] all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them.”
Barbara Bush (1925–2018) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Marketplace (6 March 2005)
“Now and then philosophers invade the field of biological sciences with these beguiling generalizations, which tend to be unproductive, purely verbal solutions lacking in substance. At best, they may prove useful when viewed simply as working hypotheses.”
Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852–1934) said by 1934 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“People thought I was a charlatan and a nut, [he remembered]. The doctors were against me — they said that working out with weights would give people heart attacks and they would lose their sex drive.”
Jack LaLanne (1914–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My advice is precisely the advice my mother gave me. If you believe you have talent, the next thing you must have is determination. If you keep working, keep striving, and try always to move forward a little bit with every job you do, you’ll eventually make it. And I believe that!”
Cass Elliot (1941–1974) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "Twenty Questions for Mama Cass" by Frederick Todd in American Girl magazine (June 1970)
“I think everybody who has a brain should get involved in politics. Working within. Not criticizing it from the outside. Become an active participant, no matter how feeble you think the effort is.”
Cass Elliot (1941–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Government, management and unions...have now...jointly embarked for the first time in Britain, on the path of working out together how to create and share the nation's wealth for the benefit of all the people. It is an offer to employers and unions to share fully with the Government the benefits and the obligations involved in running the national economy.”
Edward Heath (1916–2005) first seen 1972 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to Conservative Party Conference in Blackpool (14 October 1972), quoted in John Campbell, Edward Heath (1993), pp. 473-474
“If I had done things differently, I'd probably have the paparazzi waiting around for me. At the studio where I've been recording, Jessica Simpson is working there, too. The paparazzi are outside waiting for her to come out. That's the result of her decisions. My decisions have led me to the point that when I walk out in front of the paparazzi, I'm considered a waste of film.”
John Mayer (born 1977) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Small, Mark (2005). "John Mayer '98: Running with the Big Dogs" Berlee.edu (accessed February 11, 2010)
“Gravity is working against me, And gravity wants to bring me down.Oh, twice as much ain't twice as good And can't sustain like one half could. It's wanting more that's gonna send me to my knees.”
John Mayer (born 1977) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Of working happily, even in the midst of difficulties,”
Paulo Coelho (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Tom Fleming, the eldest, was said to look like King George V, and indeed, was often mistaken for His Majesty when in the vicinity of Scotland Road, Anfield Road or Lime Street. Why people would suspect that the King might be working in Tate and Lyle's sugar factory is beyond me, but there you are.”
“I think we need to continue working hard on developing a nuclear weapons free zone in the Middle East... unfortunately things are not going in the right direction right now. We need to understand that without comprehensive peace in the Middle East, we have no security.”
Mohamed ElBaradei (born 1942) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was van Gogh's madness that prevented him from working; the paintings themselves are ineffably sane, if sanity is to be defined in terms of exact judgment of ends and means and the power of visual analysis.”
Robert Hughes (1938–2012) first seen 1984 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Vincent van Gogh, Part I" (1984)
“I part company with the Congress and Mohandas K. Gandhi. I do not believe in working up mob hysteria. Politics is a gentleman's game.”
Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1948) first seen 1920 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speaking to journalist Durga Das in London (December 1920) as quoted in Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity : The Search for Saladin (1997) by Akbar S. Ahmed, p. 67
“The writers of Sanford and Son were so brave in bringing their program to television. I mean, working with all those black people!”
Sarah Silverman (born 1970) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Solos I kind of [couldn't] care less about. I know most people probably think that's what I care most about, but it's really the melody playing that is the cornerstone of what I'm working on.”
Joe Satriani (born 1956) first seen 1997 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Guitar Magazine (August 1997).
“There's a place in the world for the angry young man With his working class ties and his radical plans He refuses to bend he refuses to crawl And he's always at home with his back to the wall And he's proud of his scars and the battles he's lost And struggles and bleeds as he hangs on his cross And likes to be known as the angry young man.”
Billy Joel (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You should resign. It's the least you can do: Resign, along with those other spies and delinquents working in the State Department.”
Hugo Chávez (1954–2013) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chavez told Hillary Clinton in a televised speech on December 9, 2010
“A man shall not be full of laughter and mockery, nor sad and mournful, but joyful. ... His desire shall not be so great that he rushes for wealth, nor shall he be lazy and refrain from working. But he shall live in contentment, have a modest occupation, and be occupied mainly with the Torah.”
Maimonides (1135–1204) said by 1204 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Even when a person suffers pain in consequence of a thorn having entered into his hand, although it is at once drawn out, it is a punishment that has been inflicted on him, and the least pleasure he enjoys is a reward; all this is meted out by strict justice; as is said in the Scripture, "all His ways are judgement" (Deut. xxxii. 4); we are only ignorant of the working of that judgement.”
Maimonides (1135–1204) said by 1204 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Apparently, there is no bad economic turn a conservative cannot do unto his buddy in the working class, as long as cultural solidarity has been cemented over a beer.”
Thomas Frank (political commentator) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A lawyer without history or literature is a mechanic, a mere working mason; if he possesses some knowledge of these, he may venture to call himself an architect.”
Walter Scott (1771–1832) said by 1832 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Sir Walter Scott
“I took over the Moran and Mack spot and wowed them. The theater owner's report to the booker of the entire circuit was a glowing review. A week later I was booked on a bigger circuit. I kept working and polishing my act until the GIANT door opened for me and there was the big time ... the Palace Theater [sic] on Broadway. P.S. If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door.”
Milton Berle (1908–2002) first seen 1995 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in One Door Closes, Another Door Opens (1995) by Arthur Pine and Julie Houston, p. 109
“The cure for all the ills and wrongs, the cares, the sorrows, and crimes of humanity, all lie in that one word LOVE. It is the divine vitality that produces and restores life. To each and every one of us it gives the power of working miracles, if we will.”
Lydia Maria Child (1802–1880) first seen 1841 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letters from New York (1841-1843), p. 206, Letter XXVIII, 29 Sep 1842
“I keep working because I am quite sure that no particle of goodness or truth is ever really lost, however appearances may be to the contrary.”
Lydia Maria Child (1802–1880) first seen 1879 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1879 letter collected in Letters of Lydia Maria Child (1882)
“So I watched the Pink Panther last night, and so I'm trying desperately to be funny, and then it's just not working out so good... I wonder if maybe I could've been a comedian or something like that, or maybe I could've been a doctor, then I wouldn't have to make anyone laugh.”
Dave Matthews (born 1967) first seen 1999 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Intro to "Dancing Nancies", Live at Luther College (1999)