“While a guy at home is sweating over his income tax and Victory garden, a dogface somewhere is getting great joy out of wiggling his little finger. He does it just to see it move and to prove to himself that he is still alive and able to move it.”

— Bill Mauldin

Up Front (1945)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "While a guy at home is sweating over his income tax and Victory garden, a dogface somewhere is getting great joy out of…" by Bill Mauldin?

Bill Mauldin 15

American editorial cartoonist 1921–2003

Related quotes

“Anyone who cannot come to terms with his life while he is alive needs one hand to ward off a little his despair over his fate — he has little success in this — but with his other hand he can note down what he sees among the ruins, for he sees different (and more) things than do the others; after all, dead as he is in his own lifetime, he is the real survivor. This assumes that he does not need both hands, or more hands than he has, in his struggle against despair.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

19 October 1921
The Diaries of Franz Kafka 1910-1923 (1948)

“Jace snorted so loudly that she turned on him with a frown. He wiggled his mud-caked fingers at her. His nails were black crescents. "Filthy inside and out.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

“The Little Man does not want to hear the truth about himself. He does not want the great responsibility which is his. He wants to remain a Little Man.”

Wilhelm Reich book Listen, Little Man!

Listen, Little Man! (1948)
Context: My intellect tells me: "Tell the truth at any cost." The Little Man in me says: "It is stupid to expose oneself to the little man, to put oneself at his mercy. The Little Man does not want to hear the truth about himself. He does not want the great responsibility which is his. He wants to remain a Little Man. He wants to remain a Little Man, or wants to become a little great man. He wants to become rich, or a party leader, or commander of a legion, or secretary of the society for the abolition of vice. But he does not want to assume responsibility for his work..."

“And I love that even in the toughest moments, when we're all sweating it - when we're worried that the bill won't pass, and it seems like all is lost - Barack never lets himself get distracted by the chatter and the noise. Just like his grandmother, he just keeps getting up and moving forward... with patience and wisdom, and courage and grace.”

Michelle Obama (1964) lawyer, writer, wife of Barack Obama and former First Lady of the United States

“I feel as I always have, that the earth is the home and the only home of man, and I am convinced that whatever he is to get out of his existence he must get while he is here.”

Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union

As quoted in a eulogy for Darrow http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/darrow1.htm by Emanuel Haldeman-Julius (1938)

“While his heart still beats, while his flesh still moves, I cannot accept that a being endowed with will-power can give in to despair.”

Jules Verne book A Journey to the Center of the Earth

Et tant que son coeur bat, tant que sa chair palpite, je n'admets pas qu'un être doué de volonté laisse en lui place au désespoir.
Source: Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), Ch. XLII in the French text, Tr. William Butcher (1992)

“.. between ourselves, do you think a worker wants to hang a picture in his home where he sees himself sweating in a factory? He would prefer a bouquet of flowers or a pretty landscape. [Leger's critic on Aragon's Social Realism ]”

Fernand Léger (1881–1955) French painter

Quote, 1950, in: Fernand Léger - The Later Years, catalogue ed. Nicolas Serota, published by the Trustees of the Whitechapel Art gallery, London, Prestel Verlag, 1988, p. 67
Quotes of Fernand Leger, 1950's