Quotes about life and people (page 10) | Quotes of famous people

“Men characterize pornography as something mental because their minds, their thoughts, their dreams, their fantasies, are more real to them than women's bodies or lives; in fact, men have used their social power to characterize a $10-billion-a-year trade in women as fantasy.”

Andrea Dworkin (1946–2005) Feminist writer

Pornography, Men Possessing Women (1979)

“If, in each hour, a man could learn a single fragment of some branch of knowledge, a single rule of some mechanical art, a single pleasing story or proverb (the acquisition of which would require no effort), what a vast stock of learning he might lay by. Seneca is therefore right when he says: "Life is long, if we know how to use it." It is consequently of importance that we understand the art of making the very best use of our lives.”

John Amos Comenius (1592–1670) Czech teacher, educator, philosopher and writer

“We are all citizens of one world, we are all of one blood. To hate people because they were born in another country, because they speak a different language, or because they take a different view on this subject or that, is a great folly. Desist, I implore you, for we are all equally human…. Let us have but one end in view: the welfare of humanity.”

John Amos Comenius (1592–1670) Czech teacher, educator, philosopher and writer

“It all began with the three wise men, followed a star took them to Bethelehem, and made it heard throughout the land — born was the leader of man. All going down to see the Lord Jesus.”

Freddie Mercury (1946–1991) British singer, songwriter and record producer

"Jesus" on Queen (1973).

“Modern paintings are like women, you'll never enjoy them if you try to understand them. ”

Freddie Mercury (1946–1991) British singer, songwriter and record producer

“In my mind, I'm always the best. I don't care what people think, what they say. In my mind, not just this year but always, I'm always the best.”

Cristiano Ronaldo (1985) Portuguese association football player

[BBC Sport, Cristiano Ronaldo: I'm the best player in the world, 5 November 2015, 4 February 2018, http://www.bbc.com/sport/football/34737914]
In an interview with the BBC ahead of the release of Ronaldo.

“We deny the existence of two classes, because there are many more than two classes. We deny that human history can be explained in terms of economics. We deny your internationalism. That is a luxury article which only the elevated can practise, because peoples are passionately bound to their native soil.
We affirm that the true story of capitalism is now beginning, because capitalism is not a system of oppression only, but is also a selection of values, a coordination of hierarchies, a more amply developed sense of individual responsibility.”

Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Duce and President of the Council of Ministers of Italy. Leader of the National Fascist Party and subsequen…

Speech (21 June 1921), Ion Smeaton Munro, Through Fascism to World Power: A History of the Revolution in Italy, 27 January 2008 http://books.google.com/books?id=DML39RmvsmYC&pg=PA120&dq=%E2%80%9CWe+deny+your+internationalism%22+mussolini&lr=&sig=gTHVLgfaIKPCn_jW8f0phjDKrAI,
1920s

“When people talk about the good old days, I say to people, 'It's not the days that are old, it's you that's old.' I hate the good old days. What is important is that today is good.”

Karl Lagerfeld (1933–2019) German fashion designer

“As a woman, I completely reject Hillary’s brand of bourgeois feminism because it leaves out millions of immigrant women, poor women, and the women under her bombs around the world.”

Abby Martin (1984) American journalist

TeleSUR, April 17, 2016 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=PV_PLCC6jeI#t=1597

“If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful at all.”

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet

Found attributed to Michelangelo in non-specialist publications as early as 1929 https://books.google.com/books?id=-0YhAQAAMAAJ&dq=If+people+knew+how+hard+I+had+to+work+to+gain+my+mastery%2C+it+would+not+seem+so+wonderful+at+all.&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=michelangelo, but no source is known. Not found in any known biography of Michelangelo.
Disputed

“Is that all, really? I thought there might have been more. We need to celebrate women physicists, because we’re out there. Hopefully, in time, it will start to move forward at a faster rate. I’m honoured to be one of those women.”

Donna Strickland (1959) Canadian physicist, 2018 Nobel prize winner

In a press conference, commenting on her becoming only the third woman to win the Nobel Prize in Physics, in [Koren, Marina, One Wikipedia Page Is a Metaphor for the Nobel Prize’s Record With Women, https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/10/nobel-prize-physics-donna-strickland-gerard-mourou-arthur-ashkin/571909/, 5 October 2018, The Atlantic, October 2, 2018] and [Sample, Ian, Davis, Nicola, Physics Nobel prize won by Arthur Ashkin, Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland, https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/oct/02/arthur-ashkin-gerard-mourou-and-donna-strickland-win-nobel-physics-prize, 5 October 2018, The Guardian, October 2, 2018]

“Wise is the one who learns from another´s mistakes. Less wise is the one who learns only from his own mistakes. The fool keeps making the same mistakes again and again and never learns from them.”

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (1956) spiritual leader

Source: Celebrating Silence: Excerpts from Five Years of Weekly Knowledge 1995-2000

“There is a God and I'm going to serve him for the rest of my life.”

Rachel Scott (1981–1999) American murder victim

Source: Letter to Mark Bodiford http://racheljoyscott.tumblr.com/post/159838052080/rachels-suicide-journal-entry-to-mark-bodiford (1998)

“So you're a tough guy
Like-it-really-rough guy
Just-can't-get-enough guy
Chest-always-so-puffed guy
I'm that bad type
Make-your-mama-sad type
Make-your-girlfriend-mad type
Might-seduce-your-dad type
I'm the bad guy, duh
I'm the bad guy”

Billie Eilish (2001) American singer-songwriter

"Bad Guy"
When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? (2019)

“For a woman, forty is torture, the end. I think turning forty is miserable.”

Grace Kelly (1929–1982) American actress and Princess consort of Monaco

Kelly (1969) in interview with William B. Arthur. Cited in: James Spada (1988) Grace: The Secret Lives of a Princess. p. 280

“You need friends, especially in the theatre, you need friends. You need people to interchange with, interface with, connect with. Together you’re going to make it, you’re going to do it together, you’re going to put it on, whatever it is.”

Al Pacino (1940) American film and stage actor and director

Producing Off-Off-Broadway] (2007)

“We have written the evidence of our existence onto the surface of our planet. Our civilisation has become a beacon, that identifies our planet as home to life.”

Brian Cox (physicist) (1968) English physicist and former musician

Summing up the documentation Wonders of the Solar System, episode 5

“Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change.”

Jim Rohn (1930–2009) American motivational speaker

“If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.”

Cardinal Richelieu (1585–1642) French clergyman, noble and statesman

Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
As quoted in The Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations (1896) by Jehiel K̀eeler Hoyt, p. 763
Édouard Fournier, in L'Espirit dans l'Historie (1867), 3rd edition, Ch. 51, p. 260, disputes the traditional attribution, and suggests various agents of Richelieu might have been the actual author.
David Hackett Fischer, in Champlain's Dream (2009), Simon & Schuster, p. 704, n. 14, says it's a paraphrase of Quintilian and there is no source closer to Richelieu than Francoise Bertaut's Memoires pour servir à l'histoire d'Anne d'Autriche.
Disputed

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator