Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor
“I've lived most of my entire adult life outside the law, and never have I compromised with authority. But neither have I gone out and picked fights with authority. That's stupid.”
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1976)
Context: I set an example. That's all anyone can do. I'm sorry the cowgirls didn't pay better attention, but I couldn't force them to notice me. I've lived most of my entire adult life outside the law, and never have I compromised with authority. But neither have I gone out and picked fights with authority. That's stupid. They're waiting for that; they invite it; it helps keep them powerful. Authority is to be ridiculed, outwitted and avoided. And it's fairly easy to do all three. If you believe in peace, act peacefully; if you believe in love, acting lovingly; if you believe every which way, then act every which way, that's perfectly valid — but don't go out trying to sell your beliefs to the system. You end up contradicting what you profess to believe in, and you set a bum example. If you want to change the world, change yourself.
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Tom Robbins250
American writer 1932Related quotes
John Lewis (civil rights leader) (1940) American politician and civil rights leader
Source: Twitter https://twitter.com/repjohnlewis/status/1207420638748725250, (30 December 2019)
Alan M. Dershowitz (1938) American lawyer, author
"Is There a Torturous Road to Justice?", The Los Angles Times, 2001-11-08
“Hungry men have no respect for law, authority or human life.”
Marcus Garvey (1887–1940) Jamaica-born British political activist, Pan-Africanist, orator, and entrepreneur
Reported in Ashton Applewhite, Tripp Evans, and Andrew Frothingham, And I Quote: The Definitive Collection of Quotes, Sayings, and Jokes for the Contemporary Speechmaker (St. Martin's Press, 2003), p. 84. ISBN 0312307446.
Charles Kingsley (1819–1875) English clergyman, historian and novelist
Quoted in Albert Jay Nock's Memoirs of a Superfluous Man (1943), p. 54.
Attributed
Giovanni Gentile (1875–1944) Italian neo-Hegelian Idealist philosopher and politician
Orgini e dottrina del fascismo, Rome: Libreria del Littorio, (1929). Origins and Doctrine of Fascism, A. James Gregor, translator and editor, Transaction Publishers (2003) p. 31
“I suffer with you. I've never seen such stupid ballplaying in all my life!”
Ray Kroc (1902–1984) American businessman
http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/padres/20030922-9999_mz1s22qualch.html
“I have never spent a day in my adult life where I didn't learn something”
Peter Jennings (1938–2005) News anchor
Interview in Saturday Evening Post, quoted by USA Today http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2005-08-07-jennings-dies_x.htm?POE=LIFISVA (7 August 2005) <br class="br">Context: I have never spent a day in my adult life where I didn't learn something, and if there is a born-again quality to me, that's it.
George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright
Preface to the 1913 edition
1890s, Quintessence Of Ibsenism (1891; 1913)
Context: I have never admitted the right of an elderly author to alter the work of a young author, even when the young author happens to be his former self. In the case of a work which is a mere exhibition of skill in conventional art, there may be some excuse for the delusion that the longer the artist works on it the nearer he will bring it to perfection. Yet even the victims of this delusion must see that there is an age limit to the process, and that though a man of forty-five may improve the workmanship of a man of thirty-five, it does not follow that a man of fifty-five can do the same.
When we come to creative art, to the living word of a man delivering a message to his own time, it is clear that any attempt to alter this later on is simply fraud and forgery. As I read the old Quintessence of Ibsenism I may find things that I see now at a different angle, or correlate with so many things then unnoted by me that they take on a different aspect. But though this may be a reason for writing another book, it is not a reason for altering an existing one.
“I have been registered Republican for most of my adult life. Not registered any longer.”
James Comey (1960) American lawyer and the seventh director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
Comey, James (July 7, 2016). Hillary Clinton Email Investigation. C-SPAN. Event occurs at 01:43:06. Retrieved July 7, 2016. http://www.c-span.org/video/?412315-1/fbi-director-james-comey-testifies-hillary-clinton-email-probe&live <br class="br">2010s