Quotes about people
page 3

Anthony de Mello photo

“People who want to rise above a well-cooked meal and a well-tailored garment, are out of their spiritual minds.”

Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer

Source: One Minute Nonsense (1992), p. 157

Michael Jackson photo
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva photo

“This is a crisis that was caused by people, white with blue eyes. And before the crisis they looked as if they knew everything about economics.”

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (1945) Brazilian politician, 35th president of Brazil

At a 2009 G-20 London Summit in March 2009.
Financial crisis 'caused by white men with blue eyes http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/financial-crisis-caused-by-white-men-with-blue-eyes-1655354.html, by Andrew Grice, The Independent, 27 March 2009

Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum photo

“Try to achieve the impossible and direct your people to ways of achieving it.”

Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum (1949) Emirati politician

Leadership & Success quotes, http://www.sheikhmohammed.co.ae/vgn-ext-templating/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=d2778960a5a11310VgnVCM1000004d64a8c0RCRD&appInstanceName=default, sheikhmohammed.ae.

Freddie Mercury photo

“I like people to go away from a Queen show feeling fully entertained, having had a good time.”

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

"The Man Who Would Be Queen" in Melody Maker (2 May 1981).
Context: I like people to go away from a Queen show feeling fully entertained, having had a good time. I think Queen songs are pure escapism, like going to see a good film - after that, they can go away and say that was great, and go back to their problems. I don't want to change the world with our music. There are no hidden messages in our songs, except for some of Brian's.

Marie Antoinette photo

“It is quite certain that in seeing the people who treat us so well despite their own misfortune, we are more obliged than ever to work hard for their happiness.”

After learning of the bread shortages that were occurring in Paris at the time of Louis XVI's coronation in Rheims, as quoted in Marie Antoinette: The Journey (2001) by Antonia Fraser, p. 135 . Tradition persists that Marie Antoinette joked "Let them eat cake!" (Qu'ils mangent de la brioche.) This phrase, however, occurs in a passage of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Confessions, written in 1766, when Marie Antoinette was 11 years old and four years before her marriage to Louis XVI. Cf. The Straight Dope http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_334.html, "On Language" http://partners.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20000625mag-onlanguage.html by William Safire at The New York Times, and in the discussions at Google groups http://groups.google.com/group/alt.talk.royalty/msg/6a7b76d15c411368?dmode=source.
Context: It is quite certain that in seeing the people who treat us so well despite their own misfortune, we are more obliged than ever to work hard for their happiness. The king seems to understand this truth; as for myself, I know that in my whole life (even if I live for a hundred years) I shall never forget the day of the coronation.

David Bowie photo
John Amos Comenius photo
Keanu Reeves photo
Keanu Reeves photo
Jacque Fresco photo
Robert Greene photo
Freddie Mercury photo
Nikola Tesla photo
Trevor Noah photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Jack Kerouac photo

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"”

Part One, Ch. 1
On the Road (1957)
Context: They danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"

Marilyn Manson photo
Emily Brontë photo

“I gave him my heart, and he took and pinched it to death; and flung it back to me. People feel with their hearts and since he has destroyed mine, I have not power to feel for him.”

Source: Wuthering Heights
Context: I gave him my heart, and he took and pinched it to death; and flung it back to me. People feel with their hearts, Ellen, and since he has destroyed mine, I have not power to feel for him.

John Locke photo

“Revolt is the right of the people”

John Locke (1632–1704) English philosopher and physician

“Damaged people are dangerous. They know they can survive.”

Source: Damage

Lemmy Kilmister photo
A.A. Milne photo
Eleanor Roosevelt photo
George Orwell photo

“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

This is often attributed to George Orwell book 1984. We cannot find it inside. Perharps this is post-mortem paraphrase of his quote "Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past".

Fernando Pessoa photo
Anthony Robbins photo
Johnny Cash photo
Elvis Presley photo
Kurt Cobain photo
Charles Bukowski photo

“people run from rain but
sit
in bathtubs full of
water.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Source: The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems, 1946-1966

Maya Angelou photo

“At the end of the day people won't remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

This is a very close paraphrase of a quotation attributed to Carl Buehner in a book published many years earlier - “They may forget what you said — but they will never forget how you made them feel.” quoted in Richard Evans' Quote Book, 1971, Publisher's Press, ASIN: B000TV5WBW, although it is widely (mis)attributed to Angelou in her book Worth Repeating: More Than 5,000 Classic and Contemporary Quotes (2003) by Bob Kelly, p. 263,
Misattributed
Variant: People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel.

Joyce Meyer photo
Eckhart Tolle photo

“It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“Some people become cops because they want to make the world a better place, some people become vandals because they want to make the world a better looking place.”

Banksy pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, and painter

Banksyhttp://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts/2018739.stm
Variant: Some people want to make the world a better place. I just wanna make the world a better-looking place. If you don't like it, you can paint over it!
Source: Wall and Piece (2005)

Bertrand Russell photo

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Variant: The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.

Leonardo Da Vinci photo
Ozzy Osbourne photo

“I keep hearing this [expletive] thing that guns don't kill people, but people kill people.”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

SUNDAY, JUNE 28, 1998: QUESTIONS FOR; Ozzy Osbourne New York Times.

Marilyn Manson photo

“The death of one is a tragedy, but death of a million is just a statistic.”

Marilyn Manson (1969) American rock musician and actor

Being from Manson's Fight Song of Holy Wood, this is actually a quote from German writer Erich Maria Remarque, also often misattributed to Josef Stalin.
Misattributed

Martha Graham photo

“People have asked me why I chose to be a dancer. I did not choose: I was chosen to be a dancer, and, with that, you live all your life.”

Martha Graham (1894–1991) American dancer and choreographer

I Am A Dancer (1952)
Source: Blood Memory

Ozzy Osbourne photo
Marilyn Manson photo

“I think art is the only thing that's spiritual in the world. And I refuse to forced to believe in other people's interpretations of God. I don't think anybody should be. No one person can own the copyright to what God means.”

Marilyn Manson (1969) American rock musician and actor

Variant: I think art is the only thing that's spirtual in the world. And I refuse to be forced to believe in other people's interpretations of God. I don't think anybody should be. No one person can own the copyright to what God means.

Ernest Hemingway photo
Khaled Hosseini photo

“I'm sorry," Laila says, marveling at how every Afghan story is marked by death and loss and unimaginable grief. And yet, she sees, people find a way to survive, to go on.”

Laila, p. 395
Variant: Every Afghan story is marked by death and loss and unimaginable grief. And yet, she sees, people find a way to survive, to go on.
Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007)

David Bowie photo
Arthur Conan Doyle photo
Mary Kay Ash photo
Amos Oz photo
Rick Riordan photo
Haruki Murakami photo
Mark Twain photo
Bob Marley photo

“The people who were trying to make this world worse are not taking the day off. Why should I?”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

Response, after being asked why he went ahead and performed in the concert "Smile Jamaica", two days after he, his wife and manager were wounded inside his home after an assault by unknown gunmen, thought to be politically motivated (5 December 1976), as quoted in Bob Marley The Father of Music (2010) by Jean-Pierre Hombasch, p. 5
Variant: The people that are trying to make the world worse never take a day off, why should I?

“People say graffiti is ugly, irresponsible and childish. But that's only if it's done properly.”

Banksy pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, and painter

Source: Wall and Piece (2005)

John Wayne photo
Ernest Thompson Seton photo
Noam Chomsky photo
Mark Twain photo

“Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Variant: Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.

John Lennon photo
Anne Frank photo

“I don't want to have lived in vain like most people. I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I've never met. I want to go on living even after my death!”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

5 April 1944
The Diary of a Young Girl (1942 - 1944)
Variant: I need to have something besides a husband and children to devote myself to! I don't want to have lived in vain like most people. I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I've never met.

George Orwell photo

“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”

Sometimes paraphrased as "Liberty is telling people what they do not want to hear."
Variant: Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.
Source: Original preface to Animal Farm; as published in George Orwell: Some Materials for a Bibliography (1953) by Ian R. Willison

Paulo Coelho photo
Michelangelo Buonarroti photo

“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

Ronald Reagan photo
Indíra Gándhí photo
Tupac Shakur photo
John Lydon photo

“If you are pissing people off, you know you are doing something right”

Source: Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs

Hannah Arendt photo

“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i. e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i. e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.”

Part 3, Ch. 13, § 3.
Source: On the subject the ideal subjects for a totalitarian authority. Source: The Origins of Totalitarianism, published in 1951. As quoted by Scroll Staff (December 04, 2017): Ideas in literature: Ten things Hannah Arendt said that are eerily relevant in today’s political times https://web.archive.org/web/20191001213756/https://scroll.in/article/856549/ten-things-hannah-arendt-said-that-are-eerily-relevant-in-todays-political-times. In: Scroll.in. Archived from the original https://scroll.in/article/856549/ten-things-hannah-arendt-said-that-are-eerily-relevant-in-todays-political-times on October 1, 2019.

Frantz Fanon photo
Pablo Picasso photo

“People want to find a 'meaning' in everything and everyone. That's the disease of our age, an age that is anything but practical but believes itself to be more practical than any other age.”

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer

Quoted in: Ingo F. Walther (1996), Picasso, p. 67.
Attributed from posthumous publications

Rodrigo Duterte photo

“I don't care If I go to hell as long as the people I serve will live in paradise.”

Rodrigo Duterte (1945) Filipino politician and the 16th President of the Philippines

"Duterte: Look ma, cheap shoes no socks" http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/710288/duterte-simple-lifestyle-has-served-me-well-in-govt' (August 5 2015)

Emil M. Cioran photo
Babur photo
Pope Paul VI photo

“If evils increase, the devotion of the People of God should also increase.”

Pope Paul VI (1897–1978) 262nd Pope of the Catholic Church

CHRISTI MATRI

Osamu Tezuka photo

“I am convinced that comics should not only make people laugh. For this in my stories found tears, anger, hatred, pain and end not always happy.”

Osamu Tezuka (1928–1989) Japanese cartoonist and animator

Quoted in Helen McCarthy, Osamu Tezuka: God of manga , translated by Fabio Deotto, Edizioni BD, 2010, back cover.

Shahrukh Khan photo

“I believe it is my job to tell people about what the good points of either company are. I'm not lying in either case.”

Shahrukh Khan (1965) Indian actor, producer and television personality

From interview with Anshul Chaturvedi

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart photo

“I know myself, and I have such a sense of religion that I shall never do anything which I would not do before the whole world; but I am alarmed at the very thoughts of being in the society of people, during my journey, whose mode of thinking is so entirely different from mine (and from that of all good people). But of course they must do as they please. I have no heart to travel with them, nor could I enjoy one pleasant hour, nor know what to talk about; for, in short, I have no great confidence in them. Friends who have no religion cannot be long our friends.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) Austrian Romantic composer

Letter to Leopold Mozart (Mannheim, 2 February 1778), from The letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1769-1791, translated, from the collection of Ludwig Nohl, by Lady [Grace] Wallace (Oxford University Press, 1865, digitized 2006) vol. I, # 91 (p. 164) http://books.google.com/books?vid=0SGwLiCNxu7qZ5ch&id=KEgBAAAAQAAJ&printsec=titlepage&dq=%22The+letters+of+Wolfgang+Amadeus+Mozart,+1769-1791%22&hl=en#PRA1-PA164,M1

Rosa Parks photo

“From my upbringing and the Bible I learned people should stand up for rights just as the children of Israel stood up to the Pharaoh.”

Rosa Parks (1913–2005) African-American civil rights activist

Quoted in The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, by Jeanne Theoharis (2013)

Robin Williams photo
Michael Jackson photo
The Mother photo
Idi Amin photo
Adolf Hitler photo
Keiji Nishitani photo
Idi Amin photo

“Although some people felt Adolf Hitler was bad, he was a great man and a real conqueror whose name would never be forgotten.”

Idi Amin (1925–2003) third president of Uganda

Quoted in The Evil 100 (2004) by Martin Gilman Wolcott, p. 78.
Attributed