Quotes of famous people

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Barack Obama 1158

44th President of the United States of America 1961

Oscar Wilde 812

Irish writer and poet 1854–1900

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“"People die from typewriters falling on their heads." (talking about taking chances because you can die at any moment.)”

Jonathan Davis (1971) Heavy metal singer, frontman for Korn

People , Chance

“You laugh at me because I'm different, I laugh at you because you're all the same.”

Jonathan Davis (1971) Heavy metal singer, frontman for Korn

Also sometimes attributed to Kurt Cobain
Variant: You laugh at me because I'm different, I laugh at you because you're all the same.

“You can close your eyes to the things you don't want to see, but you can't close your heart to the things you don't want to feel.”

Chester Bennington (1976–2017) American singer-songwriter

Also attributed to Johnny Depp.

Heart , Feeling

“There seems to be a kind of order in the universe, in the movement of the stars and the turning of the earth and the changing of the seasons, and even in the cycle of human life. But human life itself is almost pure chaos. Everyone takes his stance, asserts his own rights and feelings, mistaking the motives of others, and his own.”

Katherine Anne Porter (1890–1980) American journalist, essayist, short story writer, novelist, and political activist

Writers at Work interview (1963)

Life , Feeling , Star , Motivation

“Don't join the book burners. Don't think you are going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book, as long as that document does not offend our own ideas of decency. That should be the only censorship.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

Remarks at the Dartmouth College Commencement Exercises http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/all_about_ike/quotes.html#censorship (14 June 1953)
1950s

Books , Idea , Thinking , Reading

“There were all kinds of things I was afraid of at first, ranging from grizzly bears to 'mean' horses and gun-fighters; but by acting as if I was not afraid I gradually ceased to be afraid.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Chapter II The Vigor of Life http://www.bartleby.com/55/2.html
1910s, Theodore Roosevelt — An Autobiography (1913)

Horse

“All our lives we sweat and save,
Building for a shallow grave.”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

“A picture may be worth a thousand words, a formula is worth a thousand pictures.”

Edsger W. Dijkstra (1930–2002) Dutch computer scientist

Dijkstra (EWD1239: A first exploration of effective reasoning)
1990s

“Simplicity is a great virtue but it requires hard work to achieve it and education to appreciate it. And to make matters worse: complexity sells better.”

Edsger W. Dijkstra (1930–2002) Dutch computer scientist

Dijkstra (1984) On the nature of Computing Science http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD08xx/EWD896.html (EWD896).
1980s

Education

“Thank goodness we don't have only serious problems, but ridiculous ones as well.”

Edsger W. Dijkstra (1930–2002) Dutch computer scientist

Dijkstra (1982) "A Letter to My Old Friend Jonathan" (EWD475) p. 101 in [Dijkstra, Edsger, Selected Writings on Computing, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1982, 9780387906522]
1980s

Problem

“Words are life. Words are light. Words are power. Words are energy. Words are truth. Words can enliven and words can also kill. Words can give hope, or plunge us into despair. People use words to build peace, and use words to make war. Words can create walls between cultures, religions, and nations. And words can also build bridges. The existence of an individual, a family, a community, a country, and our planet is being led to good or to evil through the power of the words we speak. The words we speak are responsible for everything that happens in this world. We, therefore, must be responsible for the words we speak. On behalf of future generations, I hope that each of us will do all we can to speak only bright, light-filled words, so that one day, our descendants will be born into a world filled with light. There is no time to lose. Starting at this very moment, I hope all of us will take a close look at the words we have been using and make constant efforts to fill them with brightness.”

Alexis Karpouzos (1967)

Source: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14108295.alexis_karpouzos

Despair , Family , Peace , Religion

“Time moves slowly, but passes quickly.”

Alice Walker book The Color Purple

Source: The Color Purple

Time

“You might have noticed that I never complain about politicians. I leave that to others. And there's no shortage of volunteers; everyone complains about politicians. Everyone says they suck. But where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky; they don't pass through a membrane from a separate reality. They come from American homes, American families, American schools, American churches, and American businesses. And they're elected by American voters. This is what our system produces, folks. This is the best we can do. Let's face it, we have very little to work with. Garbage in, garbage out.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Books, Napalm and Silly Putty (2001)

People , School , Family , Home

“Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Bird by Bird

“I don't know about you but I'm feeling 22.
Everything will be alright if you keep me next to you.
You don't know about me but I bet you want to.
Everything will be alright if we just keep dancing like we're 22, 22.”

Taylor Swift (1989) American singer-songwriter

22, written by Taylor Swift, Max Martin, and Shellback.
Song lyrics, Red (2012)

Feeling , Dance

“Life is short, but the years are long.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Methuselah's Children

Part of the secret "call and response" codewords by which members of the long-lived Howard Families can identify others:
: Life is short.
But the years are long.
Not while the evil days come not.
Methuselah's Children (1958)

Mother's Day , Life

“The natural effect of unfettered market competition is socialism. For a short time the innovator receives a large profit, as a reward for being first to the market. Then, as competitors adopt the innovation, competition drives these profits down to zero and the price gravitates toward the new, lower cost of production made possible by this innovation (that price including, of course, the cost of the producer’s maintenance and the amortization of her capital outlays). So in a free market, the cost savings in labor required to produce any given commodity would quickly be socialized in the form of reduced labor cost to purchase it.”

Kevin Carson (1963) American academic

"Who Owns the Benefit? The Free Market as Full Communism" https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/kevin-carson-who-owns-the-benefit-the-free-market-as-full-communism (2012)

Time , Nature

“Anything you can settle with money is cheap.”

Erich Maria Remarque (1898–1970) German novelist

Source: Arch of Triumph: A Novel of a Man Without a Country

Money

“Somebody said to me, 'But the Beatles were anti-materialistic.' That's a huge myth. John and I literally used to sit down and say, 'Now, let's write a swimming pool.”

Paul McCartney (1942) English singer-songwriter and composer

“Criticize by category — praise by name.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

[CNCB's Becky Quick interviews Warren Buffett (2/25/19), February 25, 2019, CNBC Television, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pqc56crs56s] (quote at 48:00 of 2:00:00)