Miscellaneous quotes
973 quotes from 439 people
I am a great friend to public amusements; for they keep people from vice.
Samuel Johnson1709–1784Life of Johnson (Boswell) (1772)If men could only know each other, they would never either idolize or hate.
Elbert Hubbard1856–1915A Thousand & One Epigrams: Selected from the Writings of Elbert Hubbard (1911), p. 13The only thing we know about the future is that it is going to be different.
Peter Drucker1909–2005MANAGEMENT: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (1973), Part 1, p. 44Wherever you come near the human race there’s layers and layers of nonsense.
Thornton Wilder1897–1975Our Town (1938), “Stage Manager”The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder.
G. K. Chesterton1874–1936Tremendous Trifles (1909), Ch. I: “Tremendous Trifles”People who see life as anything more than pure entertainment are missing the point.
George Carlin1937–2008When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? (2004)The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.
Che Guevara1928–1967Intercontinental Press (Vol. 3 January-April 1965)Fashions, being themselves begotten of the desire for change, are quick to change also.
Marcel Proust1871–1922In Search of Lost Time / Remembrance of Things Past (1913-1927), Vol II: Within a Budding Grove (1919)The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution.
Hannah Arendt1906–1975The New Yorker (12 September 1970)Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.
James Baldwin1924–1987“As Much Truth As One Can Bear” in The New York Times Book Review (January 14, 1962); republished in The Cross of Redemption: Uncollected Writings (2011), edited by Randall KenanShow a people as one thing, only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichieborn 1977The Danger of a Single Story, TED talk (2009)Shallow men believe in luck, believe in circumstances… Strong men believe in cause and effect.
Ralph Waldo Emerson1803–1882The Conduct of Life (1860), WorshipMadness is something rare in individuals — but in groups, parties, peoples, epochs it is the rule.
Friedrich Nietzsche1844–1900Beyond Good and Evil (1886), Chapter IV, aphorism 156, tr. R. J. HollingdaleThere’s only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.
Aldous Huxley1894–1963Time Must Have a Stop (1944)
George Santayana1863–1952The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress (1905-1906), Vol. III, Reason in Religion, Ch. VII