Quotes about people
page 99

Kuruvilla Pandikattu photo

“My deepest human longing is/ Not to control the world and people/ But to control and realise myself!”

Kuruvilla Pandikattu (1957) Indian philosopher

Freedom: Foster It! p. 18.
Freedom: Foster it! (2004)

Raymond Poincaré photo
Confucius photo

“Of all people, girls and servants are the most difficult to behave to. If you are familiar with them, they lose their humility. If you maintain a reserve towards them, they are discontented.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Book XVII, Chapter XXV.
Source: The Analects, Other chapters

Erik Naggum photo
Alex Haley photo

“Roots is not just a saga of my family. It is the symbolic saga of a people.”

Alex Haley (1921–1992) African American biographer, screenwriter, and novelist

A plausible statement, but no published source as yet located for it prior to 2007, and though most cite Haley as the author the earliest of these cites it with an obscure attribution to "Benhur R".[citation needed]
Disputed

Ernst Hanfstaengl photo
Yoshida Kenkō photo

“The pleasantest of all diversions is to sit alone under the lamp, a book spread out before you, and to make friends with people of a distant past you have never known.”

Yoshida Kenkō (1283–1350) japanese writer

13
Essays in Idleness (1967 Columbia University Press, Trns: Donald Keene)

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“You know my friends, there comes a time when people get tired of being trampled by the iron feet of oppression. There comes a time my friends, when people get tired of being plunged across the abyss of humiliation, where they experience the bleakness of nagging despair. There comes a time when people get tired of being pushed out of the glittering sunlight of life's July and left standing amid the piercing chill of an alpine November. There comes a time.”

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott speech, at Holt Street Baptist Church (5 December 1955) http://www.blackpast.org/?q=1955-martin-luther-king-jr-montgomery-bus-boycott
1950s
Variant: You know my friends, there comes a time when people get tired of being trampled by the iron feet of oppression. There comes a time my friends, when people get tired of being plunged across the abyss of humiliation, where they experience the bleakness of nagging despair. There comes a time when people get tired of being pushed out of the glittering sunlight of life's July and left standing amid the piercing chill of an alpine November. There comes a time.

Poul Anderson photo
Donald J. Trump photo

“Well I just want to say that we are, you know, very honored by the victory that we had, 306 electoral college votes, we were not supposed to crack 220, you [turning to the Israeli PM] know that right? There was no way to 221, but then they said there's no way to 270 [Netanyahu tries to respond, but Trump continues, so then mouths "I thought he was talking to me"] and there's tremendous enthusiasm out there. I will say that, um, we are going to have peace, in this country, we are going to stop crime, in this country, we are going to do everything within our power to stop long-simmering racism, and every other thing that's going on, because a lot of bad things have been taking place over a long period of time. I think one of the reasons I won the election is we have a very, very divided nation, very divided, and hopefully I'll be able to do something about that, and I, you know, it's something that was very important to me. As far as people, Jewish people, so many friends, a daughter who happens to be here right now, a son-in-law, and three beautiful grandchildren, I think that you're going to see a lot different United States of America over the next three, four, or eight years, er, I think a lot of good things are happening, and you're going to see a lot of love, you're going to see a lot of love.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Trump responding to a reporter's question about rising anti-Semitic incidents and a perception of xenophobia in his administration, during a joint press conference with Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmfseeZt5fA (15 February 2017)
2010s, 2017, February

Krysten Ritter photo
Daniel Levitin photo
Glen Cook photo
Tom Clancy photo
Woody Allen photo

“Harry: No, I don't think you're paranoid. I think you're the opposite of paranoid. I think you walk around with the insane delusion that people like you.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

Deconstructing Harry (1997)

Tim Parks photo
William T. Sherman photo
William L. Shirer photo
Vanna Bonta photo

“People at large are becoming more aware that there is much more to reality and to themselves than what meets the eye.”

Vanna Bonta (1958–2014) Italian-American writer, poet, inventor, actress, voice artist (1958-2014)

Vanna Bonta Talks About Quantum fiction: Author Interview (2007)

Amit Chaudhuri photo

“I think once you start eating people you should stop claiming to be a vegetarian, even if you only eat bad people.”

James Nicoll (1961) Canadian fiction reviewer

[bc663m$ira$1@panix1.panix.com, 2003]
2000s

Edsger W. Dijkstra photo
Mel Gibson photo
Richard Cobden photo

“I cannot give a stronger proof of the perils which I think surrounds us, than to say that I shall feel it my duty to stop the wheels of Government if I can, in a way which can only be justified by an extraordinary crisis…I do not mean to threaten outbreaks—that the starving masses will come and pull down your mansions; but I say that you are drifting on to confusion without rudder or compass. It is my firm belief that within six months we shall have populous districts in the north in a state of social dissolution. You may talk of repressing the people by the military, but what military force would be equal to such an emergency? …I do not believe that the people will break out unless they are absolutely deprived of food; if you are not prepared with a remedy, they will be justified in taking food for themselves and their families…Is it not important for Members for manufacturing districts on both sides to consider what they are about? We are going down to our several residences to face this miserable state of things, and selfishness, and a mere instinctive love of life ought to make us cautious. Others may visit the continent, or take shelter in rural districts, but the peril will ere long reach them even there. Will you, then, do what we require, or will you compel us to do it ourselves? This is the question you must answer.”

Richard Cobden (1804–1865) English manufacturer and Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1842/jul/08/distress-of-the-country in the House of Commons (8 July 1842) against the Corn Laws.
1840s

Lindsay Lohan photo
Henry Moore photo
Paul Romer photo

“One problem today is that people think protecting the environment will be so costly and so hard that they want to ignore the problem and pretend it doesn’t exist. Humans are capable of amazing accomplishments if we set our minds to it.”

Paul Romer (1955) American economist

At a news conference after the 2018 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics announcement, as quoted in "2018 Nobel in Economics Is Awarded to William Nordhaus and Paul Romer" https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/08/business/economic-science-nobel-prize.html The New York Times. October 8, 2018.

Michael Moore photo

“Early talk was that anti-Bush people would go see it and pro-Bush people would stay home, and that's not the case. Most people do not go around with labels. A lot of Republicans have open minds.”

Michael Moore (1954) American filmmaker, author, social critic, and liberal activist

On the movie Fahrenheit 9/11 — Zap2it.com (27 June 2004)
2004, Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)

Aldous Huxley photo

“Assembled in a crowd, people lose their powers of reasoning and their capacity for moral choice.”

Source: Brave New World Revisited (1958), Chapter 5 (p. 42)

Max Stirner photo

“Liberty of the people is not my liberty!”

Cambridge 1995, p. 190
The Ego and Its Own (1845)

Bryant Gumbel photo

“This comes at a time when Republicans are looking to gut the Clean Water Act and also the Safe Drinking Water Act. What are our options? Are we now forced to boil water because bottled water is not an economically feasible option for a lot of people?”

Bryant Gumbel (1948) American sportscaster

To Natural Resources Defense Council lawyer Erik Olson, June 1, 1995 Today. Real Video http://www.mediaresearch.org/rm/projects/99/gumbel7/segment1.ram

“The creeds are not changing as rapidly as the beliefs of the people, nor as rapidly as most men of progressive mind desire”

Benjamin Fish Austin (1850–1933) Nineteenth-century Canadian educator/Methodist Minister/Spiritualist

Defence at his Heresy Trial

Ezra Miller photo
Frederick Douglass photo

“Happily for the country, happily for you and for me, the judgment of James Buchanan, the patrician, was not the judgment of Abraham Lincoln, the plebeian. He brought his strong common sense, sharpened in the school of adversity, to bear upon the question. He did not hesitate, he did not doubt, he did not falter; but at once resolved that at whatever peril, at whatever cost, the union of the States should be preserved. A patriot himself, his faith was strong and unwavering in the patriotism of his countrymen. Timid men said before Mister Lincoln’s inauguration, that we have seen the last president of the United States. A voice in influential quarters said, 'Let the Union slide'. Some said that a Union maintained by the sword was worthless. Others said a rebellion of eight million cannot be suppressed; but in the midst of all this tumult and timidity, and against all this, Abraham Lincoln was clear in his duty, and had an oath in heaven. He calmly and bravely heard the voice of doubt and fear all around him; but he had an oath in heaven, and there was not power enough on earth to make this honest boatman, backwoodsman, and broad-handed splitter of rails evade or violate that sacred oath. He had not been schooled in the ethics of slavery; his plain life had favored his love of truth. He had not been taught that treason and perjury were the proof of honor and honesty. His moral training was against his saying one thing when he meant another. The trust that Abraham Lincoln had in himself and in the people was surprising and grand, but it was also enlightened and well founded.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

He knew the American people better than they knew themselves, and his truth was based upon this knowledge.
1870s, Oratory in Memory of Abraham Lincoln (1876)

Tawakkol Karman photo
Hillary Clinton photo

“I don’t have all the answers. I don’t know anyone who does. But this is certain: too many people have lost their lives who shouldn’t have.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), Speech in Orlando, Florida (September 21, 2016)

Daniel Abraham photo

“If things got out of hand, it would mean six or seven million dead people and the end of everything Miller had ever known.
Odd that it should feel almost like relief.”

Daniel Abraham (1969) speculative fiction writer from the United States

Source: Leviathan Wakes (2011), Chapter 16 (p. 164)

Mary Parker Follett photo
Gene Simmons photo
Qianlong Emperor photo

“Many people have fled from our China (wo Zhongguo) to your place”

Qianlong Emperor (1711–1799) emperor of the Qing Dynasty

Edict to the Zunghars by Qianlong in 1750 . (Pingding Zhungeer fanglüe, 1990: 910). From Pingding Zhungeer fanglüe [The history of the Qing conquest of the Zunghar] (1990) Beijing: Zhongguo tushuguan tushu fuzhi suowei zhongxin.
Source: Zhao 2006 https://web.archive.org/web/20140325231543/https://webspace.utexas.edu/hl4958/perspectives/Zhao%20-%20reinventing%20china.pdf, p. 9.

Walter Pater photo

“Every intellectual product must be judged from the point of view of the age and the people in which it was produced.”

Walter Pater (1839–1894) essayist, art and literature critic, fiction writer

Pico Della Mirandola
The Renaissance http://www.authorama.com/renaissance-1.html (1873)

Slavoj Žižek photo
John Millington Synge photo
Nigel Lythgoe photo

“Someday I'd like to read a story about competent people on Mars.”

James Nicoll (1961) Canadian fiction reviewer

[c3i93p$iu$1@panix3.panix.com, 2004]: About First Landing by Robert Zubrin:
2000s

Wilt Chamberlain photo
Wafa Sultan photo

“Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people and destroying embassies. This path will not yield any results. The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind, before they demand that humankind respect them.”

Wafa Sultan (1958) American psychistrist

Cited in: John M. Broder. " For Muslim Who Says Violence Destroys Islam, Violent Threats http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/11/international/middleeast/11sultan.html?pagewanted=print&_r=0" in The Saturday Profile, New York Times, March 11, 2006
Interview on Al Jazeera TV, 2006

Janez Drnovšek photo
Hillary Clinton photo
John McCain photo
Sydney Smith photo

“You find people ready enough to do the Samaritan, without the oil and twopence.”

Sydney Smith (1771–1845) English writer and clergyman

Vol. I, p. 261
Lady Holland's Memoir (1855), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Leó Szilárd photo

“In order to succeed it is not necessary to be much cleverer than other people. All you have to do is be one day ahead of them.”

Leó Szilárd (1898–1964) Physicist and biologist

As quoted in "Close-up : I'm looking for a market for wisdom. : Leo Szilard, scientist" in LIFE‎ magazine, Vol. 51, no. 9 (1 September 1961), p. 75
Variant: If you want to succeed in the world, you don't have to be much cleverer than other people. You just have to be one day earlier.

Arthur Guirdham photo
Heidi Klum photo

“My mom gave me a lot of advice. I would say the biggest advice is to always have fun. Treat people well, have respect for everybody and, therefore, you will be respected. Have fun in your life!”

Heidi Klum (1973) German model, television host, businesswoman, fashion designer, television producer, and actress

Interview with Modelinia.com http://www.modelinia.com/videos/mobile-style-spy--heidi-klum/527, May 2010

Vladimir Lenin photo
George Washington Plunkitt photo
Charles Krauthammer photo
Sarah Bakewell photo
Andrew Marshall photo

“While the group of real strategists at RAND probably never numbered more than about 25 people, the overall quality, in sheer intelligence and intellectual breadth, is simply astonishing.”

Andrew Marshall (1921–2019) the director of the United States Department of Defense's Office of Net Assessment

Remarking on RAND's group/council of grand strategy, Nuclear Heuristics: Selected Writings of Albert and Roberta Wohlstetter http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB893.pdf, p. 101 (January 2009)

Nicholas Sparks photo
Rudy Giuliani photo
Venkatraman Ramakrishnan photo
Bill Evans photo
Michael Bloomberg photo
Winston S. Churchill photo

“The greatest danger to the British Empire and to the British people is not to be found among the enormous fleets and armies of the European Continent, nor in the solemn problems of Hindustan; it is not in the 'Yellow Peril' nor the 'Black Peril' nor any danger in the wide circuit of colonial and foreign affairs. No, it is here in our midst, close at home, close at hand in the vast growing cities of England and Scotland, and in the dwindling and cramped villages of our denuded countryside. It is there you will find the seeds of Imperial ruin and national decay—the unnatural gap between rich and poor, the divorce of the people from the land, the want of proper discipline and training in our youth, the exploitation of boy labour, the physical degeneration which seems to follow so swiftly on civilized poverty, the awful jumbles of an obsolete Poor Law, the horrid havoc of the liquor traffic, the constant insecurity in the means of subsistence and employment which breaks the heart of many a sober, hard-working man, the absence of any established minimum standard of life and comfort among the workers, and, at the other end, the swift increase of vulgar, joyless luxury—here are the enemies of Britain. Beware lest they shatter the foundations of her power.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

The People's Rights [1909] (London: Jonathan Cape, 1970), pp. 139-140
Early career years (1898–1929)

Nigel Cumberland photo

“Many people find it hard working with their boss and often leave their jobs because of their boss’ working style, behaviours and attitude. I once heard someone say, “I joined the company, but I left my boss.””

Nigel Cumberland (1967) British author and leadership coach

page 184
Your Job-Hunt Ltd – Advice from an Award-Winning Asian Headhunter (2003), Successful Recruitment in a Week (2012) https://books.google.ae/books?id=p24GkAsgjGEC&printsec=frontcover&dq=nigel+cumberland&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIGjAA#v=onepage&q=nigel%20cumberland&f=false, Managing Teams in a Week (2013) https://books.google.ae/books?id=qZjO9_ov74EC&printsec=frontcover&dq=nigel+cumberland&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIIDAB#v=onepage&q=nigel%20cumberland&f=false, Secrets of Success at Work – 50 techniques to excel (2014) https://books.google.ae/books?id=4S7vAgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=nigel+cumberland&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIJjAC#v=onepage&q=nigel%20cumberland&f=false

Karen Armstrong photo

“Monotheism is essentially inimical to tribalism: it demands that a people unite in a single community.”

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

Source: Muhammad: A Biography of The Prophet (2001), Chapter 6, The Satanic Verses

Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah photo
Edward Heath photo

“If there are any who believe that immigrants to this country, most of whom have already become British citizens, could be forcibly deported because they are coloured people…then that I must repudiate, absolutely and completely.”

Edward Heath (1916–2005) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1970–1974)

Speech to Conservative Party Conference (12 October 1968), quoted in John Campbell, Edward Heath (London: Jonathan Cape, 1993), p. 245.
Leader of the Opposition

Louis B. Mayer photo

“You know how I'm smart? I got people around me who know more than I do.”

Louis B. Mayer (1884–1957) American film producer

Halliwell's Who's Who in the Movies (2001 ed)

Richard Nixon photo
Paulo Freire photo

“In sum: banking theory and practice, as immobilizing and fixating forces, fail to acknowledge men and women as historical beings; problem-posing theory and practice take the people's historicity as their starting point.”

Paulo Freire (1921–1997) educator and philosopher

Source: Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970), Chapter 2

Sacha Baron Cohen photo

“War! Huh? What is it good for? Well, for start? It sorts out who is the strongest out of the two countries. Also, you get to see some amazing explosions. But, there is some people out there who not only don't enjoy the war, but they try to spoil the fun for everyone else. And those chickens is called the 'U. N.”

Sacha Baron Cohen (1971) English stand-up comedian, writer, actor, and voice actor

Me went to New York to meet these player-haters.
As quoted in "War" http://www.listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=aV3ncKB8a4s (28 February 2003), Da Ali G Show http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0508528/?ref_=ttep_ep2.

Jonah Goldberg photo
Marlon Brando photo
Samuel P. Huntington photo
H. D. Deve Gowda photo

“I have to lead my party from the front. I love meeting people and this happens only during elections.”

H. D. Deve Gowda (1933) Indian politician

Source: Shyam Sundar Vattam At 81, Gowda Lives on Ragi Mudde on the Campaign Trail http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/karnataka/At-81-Gowda-Lives-on-Ragi-Mudde-on-the-Campaign-Trail/2014/03/28/article2135490.ece#.UzU21qiSySo, The New Indian Express, 28 March 2014

David Finkelstein photo

“Quantum theory was split up into dialects. Different people describe the same experiences in remarkably different languages. This is confusing even to physicists.”

David Finkelstein (1929–2016) American physicist

in Physical Process and Physical Law, in an edition by [Timothy E. Eastman, Hank Keeton, Physics and Whitehead: quantum, process, and experience, SUNY Press, 2004, 0791459136, 181]

Al Sharpton photo

“I'll know how outraged I am when I know how many black people were on those flights.”

Al Sharpton (1954) American Baptist minister, civil rights activist, and television/radio talk show host

Attributed as a remark on The O'Reilly Factor on 13 October 2002. There was no episode of "The O'Reilly Factor" on this date.
Misattributed

Ben Croshaw photo

“You know what's so great about junk food? Fat people who eat too much die young from cholesterol poisoning! It's a problem that solves itself!”

Ben Croshaw (1983) English video game journalist

My Tribute to the U.S.
Fully Ramblomatic, Essays

David Lange photo

“…it all happened so quickly you got a lot of bewilderment; you get a lot of people who are basically meat-and-three-veg quarter-acre New Zealanders who find themselves eating dim sims with chopsticks and they can't cope.”

David Lange (1942–2005) New Zealand politician and 32nd Prime Minister of New Zealand

Referring to the reforms of the 1980s.
Source: New Zealand Wit & Wisdom (1998), p. 156.

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan photo
Kathy Griffin photo

“I was raised right, I talk about people behind their backs. It's called manners!”

Kathy Griffin (1960) American actress and comedian

Is... Not Nicole Kidman (2005)

Ervin László photo
Lucian Freud photo
Kate Beckinsale photo

“People still say to me, 'What was it like being in such a huge flop?' The amount of hatred and vitriol was surprising.”

Kate Beckinsale (1973) English actress

Referring to Pearl Harbor (2001). Allure magazine, March 2008.

Antonin Scalia photo
George S. Patton photo

“Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do, and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.”

George S. Patton (1885–1945) United States Army general

War As I Knew It (1947) "Reflections and Suggestions"

Dinesh D'Souza photo
George H. W. Bush photo

“To those who work outside Washington, I would send a special message. At times it may be frustrating when it seems that the head office is thousands of miles away and the message is not getting through. But if I may, I'm going to issue a verbal Executive order: We're going to listen, because the heart of our government is not here in Washington, it's in every county office, every town, every city across this land. Wherever the people of America are, that's where the heart of our government is.”

George H. W. Bush (1924–2018) American politician, 41st President of the United States

George Bush: "Remarks to Members of the Senior Executive Service," January 26, 1989. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=16628&st
Address to the Senior Executive Service (1989)