Quotes about people
page 58

Jenny Han photo
Anne Lamott photo
Gene Wolfe photo

“Weak people believe what is forced on them. Strong people what they wish to believe, forcing that to be real.”

Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) American science fiction and fantasy writer

Source: Shadow & Claw

Gillian Flynn photo
Samuel Butler photo
Janet Evanovich photo
Octavia E. Butler photo
Haruki Murakami photo
F. Scott Fitzgerald photo
Craig Ferguson photo

“I think holidays create so much pressure because people feel they should be having a good time. But you shouldn't.”

Craig Ferguson (1962) Scottish-born American television host, stand-up comedian, writer, actor, director, author, producer and voice a…
Ellen DeGeneres photo
David Foster Wallace photo
Marianne Williamson photo
Mickey Spillane photo
Richard Russo photo
Ray Bradbury photo
L. Frank Baum photo
E.M. Forster photo
Jeanette Winterson photo
David Levithan photo
Ray Bradbury photo

“There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches.”

Fahrenheit 451 (1953), Coda (1979)
Context: There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist/Unitarian, Irish/Italian/Octogenarian/Zen Buddhist, Zionist/Seventh-day Adventist, Women's Lib/Republican, Mattachine/FourSquareGospel feels it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse. Every dimwit editor who sees himself as the source of all dreary blanc-mange plain porridge unleavened literature, licks his guillotine and eyes the neck of any author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery rhyme.

Dorothy L. Sayers photo

“People who prefer to believe the worst of others will breed war and religious persecutions while the world lasts.”

Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957) English crime writer, playwright, essayist and Christian writer

Source: The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers. Vol. 1, 1899-1936: The Making of a Detective Novelist

D.J. MacHale photo
Laurie Halse Anderson photo

“wats yr typ?
people who can spell”

Laurie Halse Anderson (1961) American children's writer

Source: The Impossible Knife of Memory

Frida Kahlo photo
Thomas Hardy photo
Alyson Nöel photo
Chuck Palahniuk photo

“… Everyone knows there's only one thing less welcome on a stage than a mime, and that's a clown, because everyone knows that clowns eat people.”

Laurie Notaro American writer

Source: There's a (Slight) Chance I Might Be Going to Hell: A Novel of Sewer Pipes, Pageant Queens, and Big Trouble

“People don't get to our ages without having pasts. I'm more interested in the future.”

Robyn Donald (1940) New Zealand writer

Source: Tiger, Tiger

David Foster Wallace photo
Brandon Sanderson photo
Helen Prejean photo
Paulo Coelho photo

“I want to continue being crazy; living my life the way I dream it, and not the way the other people want it to be.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: Veronika Decides to Die

Vince Flynn photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Eudora Welty photo
David Levithan photo

“A guy can do far far worse than surrounding himself with people who restore his faith in humanity.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“I give boring people something to discuss over corn.”

Aimee Bender (1969) Novelist, short story writer

Source: The Girl in the Flammable Skirt

William Golding photo
Ben Carson photo
Robin McKinley photo
John D. Rockefeller photo

“The ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee, and I will pay more for that ability than for any other under the sun.”

John D. Rockefeller (1839–1937) American business magnate and philanthropist

Attributed in How to Win Friends and Influence People (1937) by Dale Carnegie

Warren Buffett photo
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi photo
Hanif Kureishi photo
Cecelia Ahern photo
Mark Millar photo
Michel Houellebecq photo

“I don't evenclowns. Clowns are not normal people.”

Barbara Park (1947–2013) American juvenile author

Source: Junie B. Jones and That Meanie Jim's Birthday

William Faulkner photo
Dave Barry photo
Richelle Mead photo
Hazrat Inayat Khan photo

“If people but knew their own religion, how tolerant they would become, and how free from any grudge against the religion of others.”

Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882–1927) Indian Sufi

Source: The Bowl of Saki: Thoughts for Daily Contemplation from the Sayings and Teachings of Hazrat Inayat Khan

Charles Bukowski photo

“People don't do me much good.”

Source: Ham on Rye

David Sedaris photo
Andy Warhol photo
Miranda July photo

“All I ever really want to know is how other people are making it through life - where do they put their body, hour by hour, and how do they cope inside of it.”

Miranda July (1974) American performance artist, musician and writer

Variant: All I ever really want to know is how other people are making it through life—where do they put their body, hour by hour, and how do they cope inside of it.
Source: It Chooses You

John Steinbeck photo
George Carlin photo
Ernest Hemingway photo
Cecelia Ahern photo

“what a luxury it was for people to be
able to hold their loved ones whenever they wanted.”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

Variant: what a luxury it was for people to hold their loved ones whenever they wanted
Source: P.S. I Love You

Alasdair Gray photo
Rick Riordan photo
Meg Cabot photo
Jane Austen photo
Victor Borge photo

“The shortest distance between two people is a smile.”

Victor Borge (1909–2000) Danish and US-American comedian and musician

Variant: Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.

Chuck Palahniuk photo
Albert Einstein photo

“Two things are infinite: the universe and the human stupidity.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

As discussed in this entry from The Quote Investigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/04/universe-einstein/#more-173, the earliest published attribution of a similar quote to Einstein seems to have been in Gestalt therapist Frederick S. Perls' 1969 book Gestalt Theory Verbatim, where he wrote on p. 33: "As Albert Einstein once said to me: 'Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity.' But what is much more widespread than the actual stupidity is the playing stupid, turning off your ear, not listening, not seeing." Perls also offered another variant in his 1972 book In and Out the Garbage Pail, where he mentioned a meeting with Einstein and on p. 52 http://books.google.com/books?id=HuxFAAAAYAAJ&q=human+stupidity#search_anchor quoted him saying: "Two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I am not yet completely sure about the universe." However, Perls had given yet another variant of this quote in an earlier book, Ego, Hunger, and Aggression: a Revision of Freud’s Theory and Method (originally published 1942, although the Quote Investigator only checked that the quote appeared in the 1947 edition), where he attributed it not to Einstein but to a "great astronomer", writing: "As modern times promote hasty eating to a large extent, it is not surprising to learn that a great astronomer said: 'Two things are infinite, as far as we know – the universe and human stupidity.' To-day we know that this statement is not quite correct. Einstein has proved that the universe is limited." So, the later attributions in 1969 and 1972 may have been a case of faulty memory, or of intentionally trying to increase the authority of the quote by attributing it to Einstein. The quote itself may be a variant of a similar quote attributed even earlier to the philosopher Ernest Renan, found for example in The Public: Volume 18 from 1915, which says on p. 1126 http://books.google.com/books?id=cTPmAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA1126#v=onepage&q&f=false: "He quotes the saying of Renan: it isn't the stars that give him an idea of infinity; it is man's stupidity." (Other examples of similar attributions to Renan can be found on this Google Books search http://www.google.com/search?q=renan+infinity+stupidity&btnG=Search+Books&tbm=bks&tbo=1.) Renan was French so this is presumably intended as a translation, but different sources give different versions of the supposed original French quote, such as "La bêtise humaine est la seule chose qui donne une idée de l'infini" (found for example in Réflexions sur la vie, 1895-1898 by Remy de Gourmont from 1903, p. 103 http://books.google.com/books?id=RtrtAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA103#v=onepage&q&f=false, along with several other early sources as seen in this search http://www.google.com/search?q=%22humaine+est+la+seule+chose+qui%22+renan&btnG=Search+Books&tbm=bks&tbo=1) and "Ce n'est pas l'immensité de la voûte étoilée qui peut donner le plus complétement l'idée de l'infini, mais bien la bêtise humaine!" (found in Broad views, Volume 2 from 1904, p. 465 http://books.google.com/books?id=9NEaAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA465#v=onepage&q&f=false). Since these variants have not been found in Renan's own writings, they may represent false attributions as well. They may also be variants of an even older saying; for example, the 1880 book Des vers by Guy de Maupassant includes on p. 9 http://books.google.com/books?id=cQUvAAAAMAAJ&pg=PP21#v=onepage&q&f=false a quote from a letter (dated February 19, 1880) by Gustave Flaubert where Flaubert writes "Cependant, qui sait? La terre a des limites, mais la bêtise humaine est infinie!" which translates to "But who knows? The earth has its boundaries, but human stupidity is infinite!" Similarly the 1887 book Melanges by Jules-Paul Tardivel includes on p. 273 http://books.google.com/books?id=n9cOAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA273#v=onepage&q&f=false a piece said to have been written in 1880 in which he writes "Aujourd'hui je sais qu'il n'y a pas de limites à la bêtise humaine, qu'elle est infinie" which translates to "today I know that there is no limit to human stupidity, it is infinite."
Disputed
Variant: "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." Earliest version located is in Technocracy digest: Issues 287–314 from 1988, p. 76 http://books.google.com/books?id=L7LnAAAAMAAJ&q=%22sure+about+the+former%22#search_anchor. Translated to German as: "Zwei Dinge sind unendlich: das Universum und die menschliche Dummheit. Aber beim Universum bin ich mir nicht ganz sicher." (Earliest version located is Arndt-Michael Meyer, Die Macht der Kürze, Books on Demand GmbH, 2004, p. 14 http://books.google.gr/books?id=12DW-RBKTW8C&pg=PA14&dq=%22Zwei+Dinge+sind+unendlich:+das+Universum+und+die+menschliche+%22+arnd&hl=en&sa=X&ei=gquJUsrYBomM7AapmYGgCQ&ved=0CC8Q6wEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22Zwei%20Dinge%20sind%20unendlich%3A%20das%20Universum%20und%20die%20menschliche%20%22%20arnd&f=false.)
Variant: Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

Libba Bray photo
Arundhati Roy photo
Andrew Lang photo
Rick Riordan photo
James Patterson photo
Jasper Fforde photo
Nora Roberts photo
Tyler Perry photo

“People always try to do the right thing.. after they've tried everything else.”

Tyler Perry (1966) American actor, director, screenwriter, playwright, producer, author, and songwriter
Gabrielle Zevin photo

“Eye contact made people think you were being truthful even if you weren't.”

Gabrielle Zevin (1977) American writer

Source: All These Things I've Done

Robert A. Heinlein photo
Alexander Pope photo

“Some people will never learn anything, for this reason, because they understand everything too soon.”

Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet

Thoughts on Various Subjects (1727)
Source: Miscellanies in Verse and Prose. by Alexander Pope, Esq; And Dean Swift. in One Volume. Viz. the Strange and Deplorable Frensy of Mr. John Dennis. ... Epitaph on Francis Ch-Is. Soldier and Scholar. with Several More Epigrams, Epitaphs, and Poems.

Horace Walpole photo

“When people will not weed their own minds, they are apt to be overrun by nettles.”

Horace Walpole (1717–1797) English art historian, man of letters, antiquarian and Whig politician