Famous quotes

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

English Italiano Polski עברית Français Português فارسی Español 中文 Русский Deutsch العربية हिन्दी 日本語 Ελληνικά Latina Nederlands

Time

Love Friendship Happiness Hope Fear Courage Death Life Time War Peace Freedom Truth Wisdom Knowledge Science Art Music Nature Money Work Power God Beauty Laughter Family Success and failure Change Dreams Books and reading

“The treatment of the South Tirolese by the Italians, even before the advent of Fascism worse than anything known until then in modern times in any part of Western or Central Europe, has made the population more unwilling than ever to endure it further.”
Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) first seen 1945 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Protesting against the Allies' decision to hand South Tyrol back to Italy; letter to The Times (22 December 1945), p. 5
“[On presidential candidates not condemning the controversial MoveOn.org ad in The New York Times.] If you're not tough enough to repudiate a scurrilous, outrageous attack such as that, then I don't know how you're tough enough to be president of the United States.”
John McCain (1936–2018) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The Boston Globe (16 September 2007)
“You know that there’s been tremendous turmoil in our financial markets and Wall Street. And it is – it’s – people are frightened by these events. Our economy, I think, still, the fundamentals are – of our economy are strong, but these are very, very difficult times. And I promise you, we will never put America in this position again. We will clean up Wall Street. We will reform government.”
John McCain (1936–2018) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speaking at Jacksonville, Florida the day after the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the sell-off of Merrill Lynch, 15 September 2007
“I've never lived a day, in good times or bad, that I didn't thank God for the privilege.”
John McCain (1936–2018) said by 2018 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Take the two leading liberal columnists at the New York Times, Maureen Dowd and Paul Krugman. As we all know, one's a whining self-parody of a hysterical liberal who lets feminine emotion and fear defeat reason and fact in almost every column. The other used to date Michael Douglas.”
Jonah Goldberg (born 1969) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (November 8, 2004)
“She's been married so many times she's got rice marks all over her face”
Tom Waits (born 1949) first seen 1975 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Nighthawks at the Diner (1975).
“I think that God has revealed Himself to many at many times and in many places. Indeed, He continuously reveals Himself to man today : every new discovery of science is a further "revelation" of the order which God has built into His universe.”
Warren Weaver (1894–1978) said by 1978 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, who was a commander in the Naval Reserves, tried several times to persuade Mattis to appear on Sunday talk shows on behalf of the administration. The answer was always no. "Sean," Mattis finally said, "I've killed people for a living. If you call me again, I'm going to fucking send you to Afghanistan. Are we clear?”
Bob Woodward (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Show me a man who lives alone and has a perpetually clean kitchen, and eight times out of nine I'll show you a man with detestable spiritual qualities.”
Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) said by 1994 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down, Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town, I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime, But is there because he's a victim of the times.”
Johnny Cash (1932–2003) first seen 1971 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Man in Black · First public performance (17 February 1971)
“The value of a book about dealing with children is inversely proportional to the number of times it contains the word behavior.”
Alfie Kohn (born 1957) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Published in Education Leadership, September 2005
“The value of a book about dealing with children is inversely proportional to the number of times it contains the word behavior. When our primary focus is on discrete behaviors, we end up ignoring the whole child.”
Alfie Kohn (born 1957) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Even in common people, conceit has the virtue of making them cheerful; the man who thinks his wife, his baby, his house, his horse, his dog, and himself severally unequalled, is almost sure to be a good-humored person, though liable to be tedious at times.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (1809–1894) said by 1894 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Most times we're so focused on what we think we want that we can't appreciate how happy we already are. It's only when we forget about our problems and help others forget theirs that we realize how good we really have it.”
Glenn Beck (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Finally — well, he wasn't the president, he was the chancellor — Hitler, decided that it was the only empathetic thing to do, is to put this child down and put him out of his suffering. It was the beginning of the T4, which led to genocide everywhere. It was the beginning of it. Empathy leads you to very bad decisions many times.”
Glenn Beck (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I wouldn't be surprised if in our lifetime dogs and firehoses are released or opened on us. I wouldn't be surprised if a few of us get a billy club to the head. I wouldn't be surprised if, you know, some of us go to jail just like Martin Luther King did on trumped up charges. Tough times are coming.”
Glenn Beck (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We are living in times that I believe God will judge each of us for what we do and do not do. And if it's not God, it will at least be historians. I will go back to say what I said at the beginning of the year: There is great and powerful evil but there is great and powerful light as well. Get into the light and stand in it because evil is growing rapidly.”
Glenn Beck (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I've missed over 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
Michael Jordan (born 1963) first seen 1998 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Nike Culture : The Sign of the Swoosh (1998), by Robert Goldman and Stephen Papson, p. 49
“Follow the voice of your heart, even if it leads you off the path of timid souls. Do not become hard and embittered, even if life tortures you at times. There is only one thing that counts: to live one's life well and happily...”
Wilhelm Reich (1897–1957) said by 1957 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I had directed drawpipes, connected with the deep well, toward an ordinary star, and the start had faded out four times. There was no mistake about it. Three more people had seen it. There was only one conclusion: The thing we had drawn from was not a star. It was something else; a UFO.”
Wilhelm Reich (1897–1957) said by 1957 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In these fast and fickle times, it’s nice to know that there are some things you can always count on: the enduring brilliance of the last page of The Great Gatsby; the near-religious harmonies of the Beach Boys’ “California Girls”; and the lifelong friendship of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.”
Sarah Vowell (born 1969) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are times, perhaps once every thirty years, when there is a sea-change in politics. It then does not matter what you say or what you do. There is a shift in what the public wants and what it approves of. I suspect there is now such a sea-change and it is for Mrs. Thatcher.”
James Callaghan (1912–2005) first seen 1979 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On the general election of 1979, quoted in Kenneth Morgan, Callaghan: A Life (1997), p. 697
“The reason it's on the rise is because probably the boom times are getting even more boomer.”
Bertie Ahern (born 1951) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: commenting on rising inflation in the Irish economy. – The Irish Times newspaper article, 14 July, 2006.
“It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived.”
Harper Lee (1926–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have lost my seven best friends, which is to say God has had mercy on me seven times without realizing it. He lent a friendship, took it from me, sent me another.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Vogue (May 1984)
“Go around — listen to how many times a day you say, "I love" instead of, "I hate." Isn't it interesting that children, as they learn the process of language, always learn the word "no" years before they learn the word "yes"? Ask linguists where they hear it. Maybe if they heard more of "I love, I love, I love" they'd hear it sooner and more often.”
Leo Buscaglia (1924–1998) said by 1998 at the latest 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
“The Preface to the Phenomenology is one of the greatest philosophical undertakings of all times, constituting no less an attempts than to reinstate philosophy as the highest form of human knowledge, as ‘the Science.’ P. 97”
Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979) said by 1979 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The conviction that freedom is a universal desire is not the property of any political camp. ... Yet those who hold it remain a precious few, outnumbered many times over by the skeptics who don't.”
Natan Sharansky (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We must demonstrate that it is possible to overcome poverty, misery and decay by democratic means, and we must ourselves believe, and must show others, that our American tradition of the dignity and liberty of the individual is not a luxury for easy times but is the basic source of the strength and security of a successful society.”
Jane Jacobs (1916–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are times we don't want to hear about the need to temper our best hopes in order to achieve our most vital security. But we still need to do it. Before we can triumph, we must survive. Before liberty can prevail, the possibility of liberty must be preserved.”
Alan Keyes (born 1950) first seen 2000 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at McKay Events Center in Orem, Utah (22 September 2000)
“Our economy is a hundred times better, than the average African economy. Outside South Africa, what country is [as good as] Zimbabwe? … What is lacking now are goods on the shelves—that is all.”
Robert Mugabe (1924–2019) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with Heidi Holland (December 2007)
“Certainly, the contradiction of tensions and divisions between the followers of different religious traditions, sadly, cannot be denied. However, is it not also the case that often it is the ideological manipulation of religion, sometimes for political ends, that is the real catalyst for tension and division, and at times even violence in society?”
Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Meeting with Muslim religious leaders, members of the diplomatic corps and rectors of universities in Jordan" (9 May 2009)
“Perhaps we should warn you that there is one thing you won’t read, and that is a pat answer for the problems of life. We don’t pretend to make this a spiritual or psychological patent-medicine chest where one can come and get a pill of wisdom, to be swallowed like an aspirin, to banish the headaches of our times.”
Edward R. Murrow (1908–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What is a great love of books? It is something like a personal introduction to the great and good men of all past times.”
John Bright (1811–1889) first seen 1882 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Birmingham Town Hall (1 June 1882), quoted in William Robertson, Life and Times of the Right Hon. John Bright (1883), p. 522. Variation in C. N. Douglas, Forty Thousand Quotations (1917): "What is a great love…
“Each thought himself, especially since this last promotion, to be indispensably necessary to the formation of London society, and was comfortable in the conviction that he had thoroughly succeeded in life by acquiring the privilege of sitting down to dinner three times a week with peers and peeresses.”
Anthony Trollope (1815–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But especially he loved to run in the dim twilight of the summer midnights, listening to the subdued and sleepy murmurs of the forest, reading signs and sounds as a man may read a book, and seeking for the mysterious something that called -- called, waking or sleeping, at all times, for him to come.”
Jack London (1876–1916) said by 1916 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I believe you are more believing in the Bible than I. I am not, and, you are much happier than I. I must say that so often in earlier times when I saw people of the lower classes, simple manual laborers who could believe so rightly with their hearts, I always envied them, and now tell me how does one begin this?”
Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) said by 1855 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A reply to 's on his religious views as quoted in Carl Friedrich Gauss: Titan of Science (1955) by Guy Waldo Dunnington. p. 305.
“In every American community there are varying shades of political opinion. One of the shadiest of these is the liberals. An outspoken group on many subjects. Ten degrees to the left of center in good times. Ten degrees to the right of center if it affects them personally. Here, then, is a lesson in safe logic.”
Phil Ochs (1940–1976) first seen 1966 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Introduction to "Love Me, I'm a Liberal" on Phil Ochs in Concert (1966)
“I can spare a dime, brother, but in these morally inflationary times, a dime goes a lot farther if it's demanding work rather than adding to the indignity of relief.”
Phil Ochs (1940–1976) first seen 1969 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with Michael Ross (1969)
“To all the families out there without their fathers they must remember that our eternal Father in heaven will be there for us at all times and we should celebrate because of that.”
Epeli Ganilau (1951–2023) said by 2023 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The equation of motion holds at all times, it is in this sense eternal, whereas the geometrical forms, like the orbits, are changing. Therefore, the mathematical forms that represent the elementary particles will be solutions of some eternal law of motion for matter. Actually this is a problem which has not yet been solved.”
Werner Heisenberg (1901–1976) said by 1976 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Inevitably we are led to ask: why does this appalling rubbish get published—and not merely published, but displayed prominently in the very heart of an apparently respectable newspaper? In a word, because this is what people want, and if The Times didn’t fill itself pretty well from cover to cover with such stuff it would soon go out of business.”
Fred Hoyle (1915–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Against all the opposition in the world, I make this statement — that once I knew a magician. I was a witness of a performance that may some day be considered understandable, but that, in these primitive times, so transcends what is said to be the known that it is what I mean by magic.”
Charles Fort (1874–1932) said by 1932 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Some people are quick to find reasons and excuses why they cannot do things. This cuts their Ki and in times stifles their motivation altogether. Motivation is extending Ki, not receiving it. People today are more concerned with what they can get, than what they can give or do for others. That is why they cannot extend Ki.”
Koichi Tohei (1920–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Developers, developers, developers (repeats many many times).”
Steve Ballmer (born 1956) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Traditional leadership is based on ascription. In former times, there was some degree of flexibility which enabled change. This was based on prowess in war and statecraft. The British fossilised the system and traditional leaders became government functionaries. Their authority was strengthened by the colonial administration.”
Joni Madraiwiwi (1957–2016) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Address to the Pacific Regional Workshop on Leadership Development, Lami, Fiji, 9 July 2005.
“We celebrate who we are although we come from different communities. We are one nation, one people. We have differences and these cause problems and tension at times but we are not on the brink of inter ethnic strife.”
Joni Madraiwiwi (1957–2016) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Opening address, Fiji Week celebrations, 7 October 2005.
“At times some of our leaders send messages that people of one single race are important and they matter only. It undermines the very fabric of our society and hurts feelings and creates a feeling of not belonging for some people.”
Joni Madraiwiwi (1957–2016) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Closing address to the National Youth Peace camp at Debua, 9 December 2005.
“Aldous Huxley took the drug mescaline and then chronicled his experience in the book The Doors of Perception. Now, I don't actually think that's the first thing he wrote: he probably wrote 'my brain is melting' ten thousand times, but it was the book that the critics latched on to.”
Bill Bailey (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source