Quotes about people (10000 quotes, page 62)

“People with lost personalities will suffer a great deal more than those with lost virginities.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Saving Francesca

Suffering , Personality

“It may sound corny, but what's wrong with wanting to fight for your country. Why are people reluctant to use the word patriotism?”

Jimmy Stewart (1908–1997) American film and stage actor

Fight , Country

“Most people seem to take pleasure in feeling superior to someone. I'm not like that, which pleases me because it makes me feel superior.”

Steven Brust book Jhegaala

Source: Jhegaala

Pleasure , Feeling

“Why is it that people who wouldn't dream of stealing anything else think it's perfectly all right to steal books?”

Helene Hanff book 84, Charing Cross Road

Source: 84, Charing Cross Road

Books , Dreams , Thinking

“I find people confusing.”

Mark Haddon book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Source: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

“understanding the true nature of instinctive decision making requires us to be forgiving of those people trapped in circumstances where good judgment is imperiled.”

Malcolm Gladwell book Blink

Source: Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

Forgiveness , Understanding , Nature , Decision

“He told me about his monster. His sounded just like mine without quite so much mascara. When people shine a little light on their monster, we find out how similar most of our monsters are.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Light

“People glorify all sorts of bravery except the bravery they might show on behalf of their nearest neighbors.”

George Eliot book Middlemarch

Source: Middlemarch (1871)

“In Ohio seasons are theatrical. Each one enters like a prima donna, convinced its performance is the reason the world has people in it.”

Toni Morrison book Beloved

Source: Beloved

World , Season

“The English are not a very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Idea

“Darwin says people like you need to die.” (Carrow)”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night

“Trust people, until they give you a reason not to. And then never turn your back”

Nicholas Sparks book The Longest Ride

Source: The Longest Ride

“We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963)
Context: I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth concerning time in relation to the struggle for freedom. I have just received a letter from a white brother in Texas. He writes: "All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity almost two thousand years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth." Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.

Men , God , Hate , Democracy

“And after a while… I mean, how do you choose? Who gets to live? Part of life is that… well, some people have to die. My powers aren't a prescription you can get filled as needed.”

Richelle Mead Shadow Kiss

Source: Shadow Kiss

Life , Parting

“It's a very salutary thing to realize that the rather dull universe in which most of us spend most of our time is not the only universe there is. I think it's healthy that people should have this experience.”

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer

Source: Moksha: Writings on Psychedelics & the Visionary Experience

Thinking , Universe , Time

“[Gold] gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

“Charles looked at her thoughtfully. "People talk to you," he said. "That could be useful.”

Patricia Briggs book Hunting Ground

Source: Hunting Ground

“I'm told I'm very charming when people do what I want.”

Steven Brust book Tiassa

Source: Tiassa

“It is, I think, an indisputable fact that Americans are, as Americans, the most self-conscious people in the world, and the most addicted to the belief that the other nations of the earth are in a conspiracy to undervalue them.”

Henry James book Hawthorne

Hawthorne, ch. VI: England and Italy.

World , Thinking

“Yes, but knee pants are so much more flattering. You can see my legs."
You want people to see your legs?"
I have very nice legs!" We both paused to admire them for a moment.”

Karen Chance American writer

Source: Death's Mistress

“When did we stop being people, being human?”

Malorie Blackman book Knife Edge

Source: Knife Edge

“In Kilanga, people knew nothing of things they might have had - a Frigidaire? a washer-dryer combination? Really, they'd sooner imagine a tree that could pull up its feet and go bake bread. It didn't occur to them to feel sorry for themselves.”

Barbara Kingsolver (1955) American author, poet and essayist

Feeling , Imagination , Tree

“The problem is that the people with the most ridiculous ideas are always the people who are most certain of them.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

The Decider (21 July 2007)

Idea , Problem

“Welcome to the human race. Nobody controls his own life, Ender. The best you can do is choose to fill the roles given you by good people, by people who love you.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Love , Life

“What’s the point of being a magician if you can’t wave your wand and make the people you care about feel better?”

Rick Riordan book The Serpent's Shadow

Source: The Serpent's Shadow

Feeling

“Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer.”

Barbara Kingsolver (1955) American author, poet and essayist

“The silence wasn't uncomfortable or hostile but exhausted--the quiet of people who have a great deal to think about but not a hell of a lot to say.”

Stephen King book Doctor Sleep

Source: Doctor Sleep

Hostility , Hell , Thinking , Silence

“You know what they say: When people start burning books they'll soon burn human beings.”

Cornelia Funke Inkheart trilogy

Source: Inkheart

Books

“Men are cheaters.
Women are not to be trusted.
And most people are dumb.”

Jackie Collins (1937–2015) British-American novelist and writer

Source: Married Lovers

Women , Men

“Below a certain point, if you keep too quiet, people no longer see you as thoughtful or deep; they simply forget you.”

Douglas Coupland book Eleanor Rigby

Source: Eleanor Rigby

Forgetting

“It may well be impossible for people who have lived and prospered under a given social system to imagine the point of view of those who feel it offers them nothing, and who can contemplate its destruction without any particular dismay.”

Michel Houellebecq (1956) writer

Source: Submission

Feeling , Imagination

“Crazy people are not crazy if one accepts their reasoning.”

Gabriel García Márquez book Of Love and Other Demons

Source: Of Love and Other Demons

“She clung to that which had robbed her, as people do.”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

“A mistake constantly made by those who should know better is to judge people of the past by our standards rather than their own. The only way men or women can be judged is against the canvas of their own time.”

Louis L'Amour (1908–1988) Novelist, short story writer

Source: Education of a Wandering Man (1989), Ch. 10

Women , Men , Way , Time

“We never see other people anyway, only the monsters we make of them.”

Colson Whitehead book Zone One

Source: Zone One

“Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself.”

Lois McMaster Bujold A Civil Campaign

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, A Civil Campaign (1999)

“The only thing faster than the speed of thought is the speed of forgetfulness. Good thing we have other people to help us remember.”

Vera Nazarian (1966) American writer

Source: The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

Help , Speed , Forgetting

“The small hopes and plans and pleasures of children should be tenderly respected by grown-up people, and never rudely thwarted or ridiculed.”

Louisa May Alcott book Little Men

Source: Little Men

Children , Pleasure , Hope

“Love and I once had a great relationship, but I fear we've broken up. It cheated on me, wrecked my heart, and then went on to date other people. A lot of other people. And I can't stand to watch it, since love's going to cheat on them too.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Love , Fear , Heart , Cheating

“Warmth, perfume, rugs, soft lights, books. They do not appease me. I am aware of time passing, of all the world contains that I have not seen, of all the interesting people I have not met.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Source: A Cafe in Space: The Anais Nin Literary Journal, Volume 3

Books , World , Light , Time

“Here's your first problem," he said, pointing at a sentence. "'Religion is the opium of the people.' Well, I don't know about people, but I think you'll find that the opium of pirates is actual opium.”

Gideon Defoe (1975) British writer

Source: The Pirates! In an Adventure with Communists

Religion , Problem , Thinking

“For the most part people are not curious except about themselves.”

John Steinbeck book The Winter of Our Discontent

Source: The Winter of Our Discontent

Parting

“Remember, we can judge better by the conduct of people towards others than by their manner towards ourselves.”

Maria Edgeworth book The Absentee

Source: The Absentee

“How could two people who were so in love not end up happily ever after? It had to work. Didn’t it?”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Love

“Take what people give you. Drink their milkshakes.”

Wally Lamb book I Know This Much Is True

Variant: Accept what people offer. Drink their milkshakes. Take their love.
Source: I Know This Much Is True

Drink

“Knowing too much about other people puts you in their power, they have a claim on you, you are forced to understand their reasons for doing things and then you are weakened.”

Margaret Atwood book Cat's Eye

Source: Cat's Eye

Understanding

“Jump to the day we'll all be dead and none of this will matter. Jump to the day another house will stand here and the people living there won't know we ever happened.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Invisible Monsters

Source: Invisible Monsters

Housing , Dead

“I don't think I could love you so much if you had nothing to complain of and nothing to regret. I don't like people who have never fallen or stumbled. Their virtue is lifeless and of little value. Life hasn't revealed its beauty to them.”

Borís Pasternak book Doctor Zhivago

Source: Doctor Zhivago

Love , Life , Beauty , Thinking

“Murder? You mean he's dead?"
"No. He's resting comfortably," I said. "People always sleep best with their heads at a ninety-degree angle. He looks comfortable, doesn't he?"
(Paige & Elena)”

Kelley Armstrong book Stolen

Source: Stolen

Sleep , Dead

“It's like I'm thirteen again and he's my crush. All I'm aware of in this entire roomful of people is him. Where he is, what he's doing, who he's talking to.”

Sophie Kinsella book Remember Me?

Source: Remember Me?

“People who talk about their dreams are actually trying to tell you things about themselves they’d never admit in normal conversation.”

Chuck Klosterman (1972) Author, Columnist

Dreams

“People hide their truest nature. I understood that; I even applauded it. What sort of world would it be if people bled all over the sidewalks, if they wept under trees, smacked whomever they despised, kissed strangers, revealed themselves?”

Alice Hoffman book The Ice Queen

Source: The Ice Queen

World , Kiss , Nature , Tree

“It was unfair that people who longed for love the most, searched the hardest for it, found it so elusive.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Tempt Me at Twilight

Love , Search

“[T]he family is a school of compassion because it is here that we learn to live with other people. (68)”

Karen Armstrong (1944) author and comparative religion scholar from Great Britain

Source: Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life

School , Family , Learning

“These are the sort of things people ought to look at. Things without pretensions, satisfied to be merely themselves.”

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer

Source: The Doors of Perception & Heaven and Hell

“Not many people can lay claim to having broken Time, and we did it purely by accident.”

James A. Owen The Search for the Red Dragon

Source: The Search for the Red Dragon

Time

“I soon discovered that if you keep your mouth shut, people are apt to believe you know everything, and they begin to feel freer and freer to tell you anything, anxious to show that they know something, too.”

Audre Lorde (1934–1992) writer and activist

Feeling

“People cry at weddings for the same reason they cry at happy endings: because they so desperately want to believe in something they know is not credible.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

Wedding , Cry , Happiness

“Most people with low self-esteem have earned it.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Source: Napalm & Silly Putty

“… but I guess it's better for people to shut up rather than rather than say something nasty.”

Chetan Bhagat (1974) Indian author, born 1974

ONE NIGHT @ THE CALL CENTER Chapter 1 page 22

“Maybe that's what we look for in the people we love, the spark of unhappiness we think we know how to extinguish.”

Tom Perrotta Election

Source: Election

Love , Thinking

“You know, one of these days, I'm actually going to take offense if people keep throwing out these slurs. And then things are going to get rather ugly. When we Skandians do take offense, we do it with a battleax.”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: Erak's Ransom

“I think it was Milosz, the Polish poet, who when he lay in a doorway and watched the bullets lifting the cobbles out of the street beside him realised that most poetry is not equipped for life in a world where people actually die. But some is.”

Ted Hughes (1930–1998) English poet and children's writer

Source: Winter Pollen: Occasional Prose

Life , World , Thinking

“It’s probably unfair to expect the world at large, or even most people, to see us for all we are. It is essential, however, that we see ourselves for all we are. (413)”

Victoria Moran (1950) American writer

Source: Younger by the Day: 365 Ways to Rejuvenate Your Body and Revitalize Your Spirit

World

“War is an absolute failure of imagination, scientific and political. That a war can be represented as helping a people to 'feel good' about themselves, or their country, is a measure of that failure.”

Adrienne Rich (1929–2012) American poet, essayist and feminist

War , Feeling , Imagination , Failure

“Television is a medium of entertainment which permits millions of people to listen to the same joke at the same time, and yet remain lonesome.”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

Time

“People living deeply have no fear of death.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

The Diary Of Anais Nin, Volume Two (1934-1939)
Diary entries (1914 - 1974)

Death , Fear

“Why was I holding on to something that would never be mine? But isn't that what people do?”

Bret Easton Ellis book Lunar Park

Source: Lunar Park

“People are screwed up in this world. I'd rather be with someone screwed up and open about it than somebody perfect and ready to explode.”

Ned Vizzini book It's Kind of a Funny Story

Source: It's Kind of a Funny Story

World , Perfection

“It is important for this country to make its people so obsessed with their own liberal individualism that they do not have time to think about a world larger than self.”

Bell Hooks (1952) American author, feminist, and social activist

Source: Black Genius: African-American Solutions to African-American Problems

World , Thinking , Time , Country

“People don't deserve the restraint we show by not going into delirium in front of them.”

Louis-ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) French writer

“The fact is I am quite happy in a movie, even a bad movie. Other people, so I have read, treasure memorable moments in their lives…”

Walker Percy book The Moviegoer

Source: The Moviegoer

Reading , Happiness

“The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people.”

Richard J. Foster (1942) American Quaker theologian

Source: Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth

Intelligence

“I can win an argument on any topic, against any opponent. People know this, and steer clear of me at parties. Often, as a sign of their great respect, they don't even invite me.”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

“I hate the moon. I hate tides and earthquakes and volcanoes. I hate a world where things that have absolutely nothing to do with me can destroy my life and the lives of people I love.”

Susan Beth Pfeffer book Life As We Knew It

Source: Life As We Knew It

Love , Life , Hate , World

“I am really much more afraid of those people who have so great a fear of the devil, than I am of the devil himself. Satan can do me no harm whatever, but they can trouble me very much, particularly if they be confessors.”

Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582) Roman Catholic saint

Source: The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus (c.1565), Ch. XXV. "Divine Locutions. Discussions on That Subject" ¶ 26 & 27
Variant translation: I do not fear Satan half so much as I fear those who fear him.
Source: The Life of Saint Teresa of Ávila by Herself
Context: May it please His Majesty that we fear Him whom we ought to fear, and understand that one venial sin can do us more harm than all hell together; for that is the truth. The evil spirits keep us in terror, because we expose ourselves to the assaults of terror by our attachments to honours, possessions, and pleasures. For then the evil spirits, uniting themselves with us, — we become our own enemies when we love and seek what we ought to hate, — do us great harm. We ourselves put weapons into their hands, that they may assail us; those very weapons with which we should defend ourselves. It is a great pity. But if, for the love of God, we hated all this, and embraced the cross, and set about His service in earnest, Satan would fly away before such realities, as from the plague. He is the friend of lies, and a lie himself. He will have nothing to do with those who walk in the truth. When he sees the understanding of any one obscured, he simply helps to pluck out his eyes; if he sees any one already blind, seeking peace in vanities, — for all the things of this world are so utterly vanity, that they seem to be but the playthings of a child, — he sees at once that such a one is a child; he treats him as a child, and ventures to wrestle with him — not once, but often.
May it please our Lord that I be not one of these; and may His Majesty give me grace to take that for peace which is really peace, that for honour which is really honour, and that for delight which is really a delight. Let me never mistake one thing for another — and then I snap my fingers at all the devils, for they shall be afraid of me. I do not understand those terrors which make us cry out, Satan, Satan! when we may say, God, God! and make Satan tremble. Do we not know that he cannot stir without the permission of God? What does it mean? I am really much more afraid of those people who have so great a fear of the devil, than I am of the devil himself. Satan can do me no harm whatever, but they can trouble me very much, particularly if they be confessors. I have spent some years of such great anxiety, that even now I am amazed that I was able to bear it. Blessed be our Lord, who has so effectually helped me!

Fear

“I think that my job is to observe people and the world, and not to judge them. I always hope to position myself away from so-called conclusions. I would like to leave everything wide open to all the possibilities in the world.”

Haruki Murakami (1949) Japanese author, novelist

World , Hope , Thinking

“The television, that insidious beast, that Medusa which freezes a billion people to stone every night, staring fixedly, that Siren which called and sang and promised so much and gave, after all, so little.”

Ray Bradbury book The Golden Apples of the Sun

The Murderer (1953)
The Golden Apples of the Sun (1953)
Context: Then I went in and shot the televisor, that insidious beast, that Medusa, which freezes a billion people to stone every night, staring fixedly, that Siren which called and sang and promised so much and gave, after all, so little, but myself always going back, going back hoping and waiting until—bang!

Night

“What you dream, you can grow. Someone told me that, but I didn't believe it. I said I had nothing and that people with nothing are unable to dream. But I was wrong.”

Alice Hoffman (1952) Novelist, young-adult writer, children's writer

Source: Green Witch

Dreams

“The thing about creativity is, people are going to laugh at it. Get over it.”

Twyla Tharp (1941) American choreographer

“Weird doors open. People fall into things.”

David Sedaris (1956) American author

“This was the price you paid for sleeping together. This was the end of the trap. This was what people got for loving each other.”

Ernest Hemingway book A Farewell to Arms

Source: A Farewell to Arms

Love , Sleep

“One day I was talking to Cora. She prayed for me because she believed I was blind to sin, wanting me to kneel and pray too, because people to whom sin is just a matter of words, to them salvation is just words too.”

William Faulkner book As I Lay Dying

Source: As I Lay Dying

“People have only as much liberty as they have the intelligence to want and the courage to take.”

Emma Goldman (1868–1940) anarchist known for her political activism, writing, and speeches

Intelligence , Courage

“People do not change, they are merely revealed.”

Anne Enright The Gathering

Source: The Gathering

Change

“What you see is what you make. What you see in a people is what you eventually create in them.”

Ben Okri (1959) Nigerian writer

Source: A Time for New Dreams

“I hate it when people let me down, when things are temporary. I think that's why I want to be an architect."
"To build something permanent," I said. "A monument to last a thousand years.”

Rick Riordan book The Last Olympian

Source: The Last Olympian

Hate , Thinking

“Loads of children read books about dinosaurs, underwater monsters, dragons, witches, aliens, and robots. Essentially, the people who read SF, fantasy and horror haven't grown out of enjoying the strange and weird.”

China Miéville (1972) English writer

Children , Books , Reading

“… there was no such thing as curses. People make and break their own fortunes -they are the masters of their own fate.”

Ally Carter (1974) American writer

Source: Uncommon Criminals

Fate

“It is quite common to hear high officials in Washington and elsewhere speak of changing the map of the Middle East, as if ancient societies and myriad peoples can be shaken up like so many peanuts in a jar.”

Edward Said (1935–2003) Professor of English and literature

Change

“Cowards are nice, they're interesting, they're gentle, they wouldn't think of shooting down people in a parade from a tower. They want to live, so they can see their kids. They're very brave.”

William Saroyan (1908–1981) American writer

Madness in the Family (1988)
Source: Madness in the Family: Stories

Thinking

“I've found that what most people call luck is often little more than raw talent combined with the ability to make the most of opportunities. (Talon Karrde)”

Timothy Zahn Heir to the Empire

Source: Heir to the Empire

“The mere suggestion of fame and fortune casts a glamour all its own. It is rather alarming how quickly people will turn someone else's fiction into fact in order to support their own fictions of themselves.”

Libba Bray book Rebel Angels

Source: Rebel Angels

Support

“The history of free men is never really written by chance - but by choice. Their choice.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

Address in Pittsburgh http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/education/bsa/citizenship_merit_badge/eisenhower_citizenship_quotations.pdf (9 October 1956)
1950s

Men , Chance , History

“Religion. It's given people hope in a world torn apart by religion.”

Jon Stewart (1962) American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian

World , Religion , Hope

“You can fool too many of the people too much of the time.”

James Thurber (1894–1961) American cartoonist, author, journalist, playwright

"The Owl who was God", The New Yorker (29 April 1939); Fables for Our Time & Famous Poems Illustrated (1940). Parody of "You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time."
From Fables for Our Time and Further Fables for Our Time

Fools , Time