Quotes of famous people
Popular topics
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Tupac Shakur154
rapper and actor 1971–1996Barack Obama1158
44th President of the United States of America 1961William Shakespeare699
English playwright and poet 1564–1616George Orwell473
English author and journalist 1903–1950Oscar Wilde812
Irish writer and poet 1854–1900Recommended quotes

“Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.”
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer
HIStory: Past, Present & Future, Book I (1995)
“If my eyes could show my soul, everyone would cry when they saw me smile.”
Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist
Simone de Beauvoir book The Second Sex
The Second Sex (1949)
Context: It is nonsense to assert that revelry, vice, ecstasy, passion, would become impossible if man and woman were equal in concrete matters; the contradictions that put the flesh in opposition to the spirit, the instant to time, the swoon of immanence to the challenge of transcendence, the absolute of pleasure to the nothingness of forgetting, will never be resolved; in sexuality will always be materialised the tension, the anguish, the joy, the frustration, and the triumph of existence. To emancipate woman is to refuse to confine her to the relations she bears to man, not to deny them to her; let her have her independent existence and she will continue none the less to exist for him also: mutually recognising each other as subject, each will yet remain for the other an other. The reciprocity of their relations will not do away with the miracles — desire, possession, love, dream, adventure — worked by the division of human beings into two separate categories; and the words that move us — giving, conquering, uniting — will not lose their meaning. On the contrary, when we abolish the slavery of half of humanity, together with the whole system of hypocrisy that it implies, then the 'division' of humanity will reveal its genuine significance and the human couple will find its true form.
“What a terrible era in which idiots govern the blind.”
William Shakespeare Julius Caesar
Source: Julius Caesar
“From now on you must pray for your people and yourself three times a day.”
Matka Tereza (1910–1997) Roman Catholic saint of Albanian origin
Mother Teresa, as quoted by Dawit Wolde Giorgis (1989) Red Tears: War, Famine and Revolution in Ethiopia, The Red Sea Press Inc., p. 213
1980s
“I don't have a drinking problem ‘cept when I can't get a drink.”
Tom Waits (1949) American singer-songwriter and actor
"Bad Liver and a Broken Heart", Small Change (1976).
“I have a testimony this day in my conscience, before God, however the world rage.”
John Knox (1514–1572) Scottish clergyman, writer and historian
"Last Will and Testament" (May 1572); published in John Knox and John Knox's House (1905) by Charles John Guthrie
Context: None have I corrupted. None have I defrauded. Merchandise have I not made — to God's glory I write — of the glorious Evangel of Jesus Christ; but, according to the measure of the grace granted unto me, I have divided the Sermon of Truth in just parts, beating down the rebellion of the proud against God, and raising up the consciences troubled with the knowledge of their sins, by declaring Jesus Christ, the strength of His Death, and the mighty operation of His Resurrection, in the hearts of the Faithful. Of this, I say, I have a testimony this day in my conscience, before God, however the world rage.
Jocelyn Bell Burnell (1943) British scientist
Beautiful Minds (2010)
Context: Science doesn't always go forwards. It's a bit like doing a Rubik's cube. You sometimes have to make more of a mess with a Rubik's cube before you can get it to go right. You build up this picture of what there is and you believe it to be true and you work with this picture and you refine it but sometimes you have to abandon the picture. Sometimes you discover the picture you thought you had, that everybody thought we had, actually turns out to be wrong.
Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist
The Ballot or the Bullet (1964), Speech in Detroit, Michigan (12 April 1964)
Ludwig von Mises book Socialism
Part II : The Economics of a Socialist Community, § I : The Economics of an Isolated Socialist Community, Ch. 5 : The Nature of Economic Activity, p. 97 http://www.econlib.org/library/Mises/msS3.html#Part%20II,Ch.5 <br class="br">Socialism (1922) <br class="br">Source: Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis
Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973) austrian economist
Ch. VII : The Economic, Social, and Political Consequences of Interventionism § 1. The Economic Consequences https://fee.org/resources/interventionism-an-economic-analysis-2#economic <br class="br"> Interventionism: An Economic Analysis https://fee.org/resources/interventionism-an-economic-analysis/ (1940) <br class="br">Context: The unhampered market economy is not a system which would seem commendable from the standpoint of the selfish group interests of the entrepreneurs and capitalists. It is not the particular interests of a group or of individual persons that require the market economy, but regard for the common welfare. It is not true that the advocates of the free-market economy are defenders of the selfish interests of the rich. The particular interests of the entrepreneurs and capitalists also demand interventionism to protect them against the competition of more efficient and active men. The free development of the market economy is to be recommended, not in the interest of the rich, but in the interest of the masses of the people.
Ludwig von Mises book Socialism
Socialism (1922), Epilogue (1947)
Context: In fact, however, the supporters of the welfare state are utterly anti-social and intolerant zealots. For their ideology tacitly implies that the government will exactly execute what they themselves deem right and beneficial. They entirely disregard the possibility that there could arise disagreement with regard to the question of what is right and expedient and what is not. They advocate enlightened despotism, but they are convinced that the enlightened despot will in every detail comply with their own opinion concerning the measures to be adopted. They favour planning, but what they have in mind is exclusively their own plan, not those of other people. They want to exterminate all opponents, that is, all those who disagree with them. They are utterly intolerant and are not prepared to allow any discussion. Every advocate of the welfare state and of planning is a potential dictator. What he plans is to deprive all other men of all their rights, and to establish his own and his friends' unrestricted omnipotence. He refuses to convince his fellow-citizens. He prefers to "liquidate" them. He scorns the "bourgeois" society that worships law and legal procedure. He himself worships violence and bloodshed.
“Economic knowledge necessarily leads to liberalism.”
Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973) austrian economist