
„Sweat saves blood, blood saves lives, but brains saves both.“
— Erwin Rommel German field marshal of World War II 1891 - 1944
A collection of quotes on the topic of quotes, quote, doing, can.
„Sweat saves blood, blood saves lives, but brains saves both.“
— Erwin Rommel German field marshal of World War II 1891 - 1944
„Tell me how you read and I'll tell you who you are.“
— Martin Heidegger German philosopher 1889 - 1976
„Life would be tragic if it weren't funny.“
— Stephen Hawking British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author 1942 - 2018
As quoted in "The Science of Second-Guessing", The New York Times (12 December 2004)
„Make it a rule never to give a child a book you would not read yourself.“
— George Bernard Shaw Irish playwright 1856 - 1950
„There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.“
— Joseph Brodsky Russian and American poet and Nobel Prize for Literature laureate 1940 - 1996
Misattributed
„"Classic." A book which people praise and don't read.“
— Mark Twain, book Following the Equator
Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar, Ch. XXV
Following the Equator (1897)
„I am too fond of reading books to care to write them.“
— Oscar Wilde, book The Picture of Dorian Gray
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
„I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us.“
— Franz Kafka author 1883 - 1924
„A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read.“
— Terry Pratchett, book Guards! Guards!
Source: Guards! Guards!
„If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.“
— Ralph Waldo Emerson American philosopher, essayist, and poet 1803 - 1882
Total 667 quotes quotes, filter:
„I have completely forgotten the symbolic calculus.“
— Emmy Noether German mathematician 1882 - 1935
Original: (de) Ich habe das symbolische Rechnen mit Stumpf und Stil verlernt.
Habilitation curriculum vitae (1919) submitted to the Göttingen Faculty, as quoted by Peter Roquette, "Emmy Noether and Hermann Weyl" (Jan. 28, 2008) extended manuscript of a talk presented at the Hermann Weyl conference in Bielefeld, September 10, 2006.
— Jiddu Krishnamurti Indian spiritual philosopher 1895 - 1986
Source: 1980s, That Benediction is Where You Are (1985), p. 18
Context: From childhood we are trained to have problems. When we are sent to school, we have to learn how to write, how to read, and all the rest of it. How to write becomes a problem to the child. Please follow this carefully. Mathematics becomes a problem, history becomes a problem, as does chemistry. So the child is educated, from childhood, to live with problems — the problem of God, problem of a dozen things. So our brains are conditioned, trained, educated to live with problems. From childhood we have done this. What happens when a brain is educated in problems? It can never solve problems; it can only create more problems. When a brain that is trained to have problems, and to live with problems, solves one problem, in the very solution of that problem, it creates more problems. From childhood we are trained, educated to live with problems and, therefore, being centred in problems, we can never solve any problem completely. It is only the free brain that is not conditioned to problems that can solve problems. It is one of our constant burdens to have problems all the time. Therefore our brains are never quiet, free to observe, to look. So we are asking: Is it possible not to have a single problem but to face problems? But to understand those problems, and to totally resolve them, the brain must be free.
„Love is the greatest refreshment in life“
— Pablo Picasso Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer 1881 - 1973
— Albert Einstein German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity 1879 - 1955
Found in Montana Libraries: Volumes 8-14 (1954), p. cxxx http://books.google.com/books?id=PpwaAAAAMAAJ&q=%22more+fairy+tales%22#search_anchor. The story is given as follows: "In the current New Mexico Library Bulletin, Elizabeth Margulis tells a story of a woman who was a personal friend of the late dean of scientists, Dr. Albert Einstein. Motivated partly by her admiration for him, she held hopes that her son might become a scientist. One day she asked Dr. Einstein's advice about the kind of reading that would best prepare the child for this career. To her surprise, the scientist recommended 'Fairy tales and more fairy tales.' The mother protested that she was really serious about this and she wanted a serious answer; but Dr. Einstein persisted, adding that creative imagination is the essential element in the intellectual equipment of the true scientist, and that fairy tales are the childhood stimulus to this quality." However, it is unclear from this description whether Margulis heard this story personally from the woman who had supposedly had this discussion with Einstein, and the relevant issue of the New Mexico Library Bulletin does not appear to be online.
Variant: "First, give him fairy tales; second, give him fairy tales, and third, give him fairy tales!" Found in The Wilson Library Bulletin, Vol. 37 from 1962, which says on p. 678 http://books.google.com/books?id=KfQOAQAAMAAJ&q=einstein#search_anchor that this quote was reported by "Doris Gates, writer and children's librarian".
Variant: "Fairy tales … More fairy tales … Even more fairy tales". Found in Breaking the Magic Spell: Radical Theories of Folk and Fairy Tales by Jack Zipes (1979), p. 1 http://books.google.com/books?id=MxZFuahqzsMC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false.
Variant: "If you want your children to be brilliant, tell them fairy tales. If you want them to be very brilliant, tell them even more fairy tales." Found in Chocolate for a Woman's Heart & Soul by Kay Allenbaugh (1998), p. 57 http://books.google.com/books?id=grrpJh7-CfcC&q=brilliant#search_anchor. This version can be found in Usenet posts from before 1998, like this one from 1995 http://groups.google.com/group/rec.music.beatles/msg/cec9a9fdf803b72b?hl=en.
Variant: "If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be very intelligent, read them more fairy tales." Found in Mad, Bad and Dangerous?: The Scientist and the Cinema by Christopher Frayling (2005), p. 6 http://books.google.com/books?id=HjRYA3ELdG0C&lpg=PA6&dq=einstein%20%22want%20your%20children%20to%20be%20intelligent%22&pg=PA6#v=onepage&q=einstein%20%22want%20your%20children%20to%20be%20intelligent%22&f=false.
Variant: "If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales." Found in Super joy English, Volume 8 by 佳音事業機構 (2006), p. 87 http://books.google.com/books?id=-HUBKzP8zsUC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA87#v=onepage&q&f=false
Disputed
Context: Fairy tales and more fairy tales. [in response to a mother who wanted her son to become a scientist and asked Einstein what reading material to give him]
„I have found it! or I have got it!, commonly quoted as Eureka!“
— Archimedes Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer -287 - -212 BC
What he exclaimed as he ran naked from his bath, realizing that by measuring the displacement of water an object produced, compared to its weight, he could measure its density (and thus determine the proportion of gold that was used in making a king's crown); as quoted by Vitruvius Pollio in De Architectura, ix.215;
Original: (el) εὕρηκα [heúrēka]
„Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose.“
— Douglas Adams English writer and humorist 1952 - 2001
— Mark Twain American author and humorist 1835 - 1910
No known source in Twain's works.
The earliest known source is a Usenet post from November 2000 https://groups.google.com/forum/message/raw?msg=israel.francophones/j_b0peHVcJw/YN5cG6Pdk6QJ.
Disputed
„He wrapped himself in quotations - as a beggar would enfold himself in the purple of Emperors.“
— Rudyard Kipling, book Many Inventions
The Finest Story in the World http://www.telelib.com/authors/K/KiplingRudyard/prose/ManyInventions/fineststory.html (1893).
Other works
Source: Many Inventions
Context: When next he came to me he was drunk—royally drunk on many poets for the first time revealed to him. His pupils were dilated, his words tumbled over each other, and he wrapped himself in quotations—as a beggar would enfold himself in the purple of emperors.
„All good tales are true tales, at least for those who read them, which is all that counts.“
— Javier Cercas Spanish writer, journalist and professor of Spanish literature 1962
„To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.“
— Victor Hugo French poet, novelist, and dramatist 1802 - 1885
— Periyar E. V. Ramasamy Tamil politician and social reformer 1879 - 1973
Veeramani, Collected Works of Periyar, p. 511.
Untouchability
— Claude Monet French impressionist painter 1840 - 1926
Quote in a letter from Giverny to Gustave Geffroy, 23 November 1894; as cited in: P. Michael Doran (2001), Art Conversations with Cézanne, p. 3
1890 - 1900
„The Rock: And I quote: You know your damn role and Shut Your Damn Mouth!“
— Dwayne Johnson American actor and professional wrestler 1972
The Rock's return to WWE Raw as host of WrestleMania XXVII (14 February, 2011) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8ejiG5-BtA&feature=related.
— Swami Vivekananda Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher 1863 - 1902
Source: Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, 9 Vols.
„I read for pleasure and that is the moment I learn the most.“
— Margaret Atwood Canadian writer 1939
— Groucho Marx American comedian 1890 - 1977
As quoted in Halliwell’s Filmgoer’s Companion (1984) by Leslie Halliwell
Variant: I find TV very educational. Every time someone switches it on I go into another room and read a good book.
— Gustave Flaubert French writer (1821–1880) 1821 - 1880
Correspondence, Letters to Mademoiselle Leroyer de Chantepie
Variant: Do not read as children do to enjoy themselves, or, as the ambitious do to educate themselves. No, read to live.
Context: Do not read as children do to enjoy themselves, or, as the ambitious do to educate themselves. No, read to live. (June 1857)
„In quoting others, we cite ourselves.“
— Julio Cortázar, book Around the Day in Eighty Worlds
Source: Around the Day in Eighty Worlds
— Ralph Waldo Emerson American philosopher, essayist, and poet 1803 - 1882
Variant: I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.
— Rani Mukerji Indian film actress 1978
http://ranimukherji.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=interviews&action=display&thread=407.
Rani On Celebrities
Original: (fi) On John Abraham
— Joseph Goebbels Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister 1897 - 1945
Berndt reicht mir eine Ausarbeitung über die von uns zu betreibende okkultistische Propaganda ein. Hier wird in der Tat Einiges geleistet. Die Amerikaner und Engländer fallen ja vorzüglich auf eine solche Art von Propaganda herein. Wir nehmen alle irgendwie zur Verfügung stehenden Kronzeugen der okkulten Weissagung als Mithelfer in Anspruch. Nostradamus muß wieder einmal daran glauben.
Dated 19 May 1942 concerning the use of Nostradamus's famous "Hister" quatrain
as displayed and translated in Nazis: The Occult Conspiracy, Discovery Channel
Diary excerpts
— Sita Ram Goel Indian activist 1921 - 2003
Jesus Christ, Artifice for Aggression, 1994
— Yuri Gagarin Soviet pilot and cosmonaut, the first human in space 1934 - 1968
Rays were blazing through the of the earth, the horizon became bright orange, gradually passing into all the colors of the rainbow: from light blue to dark blue, to violet and then to black. What an indescribable gamut of colors! Just like the paintings of the artist Nicholas Roerich.
„Quoted in "Badoglio: duca di Caporetto" - Page 14 - by Carlo De Biase - 1965“
— Pietro Badoglio Italian general during both World Wars and a Prime Minister of Italy 1871 - 1956
Se orgoglio ho io, è quello di aver sempre servito fedelmente e con devozione illimitata voi, Duce.
— Omar Khayyám, book Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám
Omar Khayyám, Rubaiyat (1048–1123), translation by Richard Le Gallienne
Well, well, what matters it! believe that too. note: Not a literal translation of Omar Khayyám's work, but a paraphrase according to Richard Le Gallienne own understanding.
Source: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/525669afe4b0b689af6075bc/t/525e8a8ee4b0f0a0fb6fa309/1381927566101/Talib+--+Le+Gallienne%27s+Paraphrase+and+the+Limits+of+Translation+from+FitzGerald+Rubaiyat+volume.pdf pp. 175-176
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/fitzgeralds-rubaiyat-of-omar-khayyam/le-galliennes-paraphrase-and-the-limits-of-translation/CC05D35479CE33C2E66ABA8CF51F779B Le Gallienne's Paraphrase and the Limits of Translation']' by Adam Talib
„Avoid this crowd like the plague. And if they quote you, make damn sure they heard you.“
— Barbara Bush former First Lady of the United States 1925 - 2018
Advice about news reporters, to incoming first lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton, on a tour of the White House, as quoted in Newsweek magazine (30 November 1992)
— Antonin Scalia former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States 1936 - 2016
Stanford v. Kentucky (1989) (plurality part, case later overruled by Roper); decided June 26, 1989.
1980s
— Rasmus Lerdorf Danish programmer and creator of PHP 1968
@rasmus http://twitter.com/rasmus/status/12481790397
— Jiddu Krishnamurti Indian spiritual philosopher 1895 - 1986
"Fifth Talk in Bombay 1950 (12 March 1950) http://www.jkrishnamurti.com/krishnamurti-teachings/view-text.php?tid=352&chid=4672&w=%22Truth+is+not+something+in+the+distance%22, J.Krishnamurti Online, JKO Serial No. 500312, The Collected Works, Vol. VI, p. 134
Posthumous publications, The Collected Works
Context: Truth is not something in the distance; there is no path to it, there is neither your path nor my path; there is no devotional path, there is no path of knowledge or path of action, because truth has no path to it. The moment you have a path to truth, you divide it, because the path is exclusive; and what is exclusive at the very beginning will end in exclusiveness. The man who is following a path can never know truth because he is living in exclusiveness; his means are exclusive, and the means are the end, are not separate from the end. If the means are exclusive, the end is also exclusive. So there is no path to truth, and there are not two truths. Truth is not of the past or the present, it is timeless; the man who quotes the truth of the Buddha, of Shankara, of Christ, or who merely repeats what I am saying, will not find truth, because repetition is not truth. Repetition is a lie.
2000
— Thomas Jefferson 3rd President of the United States of America 1743 - 1826
Notes on Religion (October, 1776). Published in The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes http://oll.libertyfund.org/ToC/0054.php, Federal Edition, Paul Leicester Ford, ed., New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904, Vol. 2 http://oll.libertyfund.org/Texts/Jefferson0136/Works/0054-02_Bk.pdf, pp. 267
1770s
Context: Locke denies toleration to those who entertain opinions contrary to those moral rules necessary for the preservation of society; as for instance, that faith is not to be kept with those of another persuasion, … that dominion is founded in grace, or who will not own & teach the duty of tolerating all men in matters of religion, or who deny the existence of a god (it was a great thing to go so far—as he himself says of the parliament who framed the act of toleration … He says 'neither Pagan nor Mahomedan nor Jew ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the Commonwealth because of his religion.' Shall we suffer a Pagan to deal with us and not suffer him to pray to his god? Why have Christians been distinguished above all people who have ever lived, for persecutions? Is it because it is the genius of their religion? No, its genius is the reverse. It is the refusing toleration to those of a different opinion which has produced all the bustles and wars on account of religion. It was the misfortune of mankind that during the darker centuries the Christian priests following their ambition and avarice combining with the magistrate to divide the spoils of the people, could establish the notion that schismatics might be ousted of their possessions & destroyed. This notion we have not yet cleared ourselves from.
— Gregory Maguire Novelist 1954
Source: What-the-Dickens: The Story of a Rogue Tooth Fairy
— William Goldman American novelist, screenwriter and playwright 1931 - 2018
Source: Adventures In The Screen Trade: A Personal View of Hollywood
„The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him.“
— Robert Benchley American comedian 1889 - 1945
Source: "Quick Quotations" in My Ten Years in a Quandary and How They Grew (1936)
Context: The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him. That remark in itself wouldn’t make any sense if quoted as it stands.
„We live in an age that reads too much to be wise, and that thinks too much to be beautiful.“
— Oscar Wilde, book The Picture of Dorian Gray
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
— Alan Brennert American writer 1954
Source: Honolulu
— Albert Einstein German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity 1879 - 1955
1930s, Wisehart interview (1930)
Context: Much reading after a certain age diverts the mind from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking, just as the man who spends too much time in the theaters is apt to be content with living vicariously instead of living his own life.
„Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman. Believing what he read made him mad.“
— George Bernard Shaw Irish playwright 1856 - 1950
„If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.“
— Oscar Wilde Irish writer and poet 1854 - 1900
„I regard the afterlife to be a fairy story for people that are afraid of the dark“
— Stephen Hawking British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author 1942 - 2018
„When we can't think for ourselves, we can always quote“
— Ludwig Wittgenstein Austrian-British philosopher 1889 - 1951
„Today is the last day of some of your life. Don't waste it." quote from Tara Daniels“
— Jill Shalvis American writer 1963
Source: The Sweetest Thing
„When all is said and done, there is usually more said than done.
[as quoted by Alfred E Neuman]“
— Lou Holtz American college football coach, professional football coach, television sports announcer 1937
Variant: When all is said and done, more is said than done.
„One Original Thought is worth 1000 Meaningless Quotes.“
— Banksy pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, and painter
„You always find the right quote, or the right thing to say to make me believe you love me.“
— Cassandra Clare, book City of Fallen Angels
Source: City of Fallen Angels
— Steven Wright American actor and author 1955
When the Leaves Blow Away (2006), I Still Have a Pony (2007)
„We read to know we're not alone.“
— William Nicholson, movie Shadowlands
Variant: We read to know that we are not alone.
Source: Shadowlands (1993)
„Real smarts begin when you quit quoting other people……..“
— Chuck Palahniuk, book Pygmy
Source: Pygmy
„Quotable quotes are coins rubbed smooth by circulation.“
— Louis Menand writer, Pulitzer Prize for History winner 1952
„Those who don't read good books have no advantage over those who can't.“
— Mark Twain American author and humorist 1835 - 1910
Variant: The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.
„I like quoting Einstein. Know why? Because nobody dares contradict you.“
— Studs Terkel American author, historian and broadcaster 1912 - 2008
The Guardian interview (2002)
— Douglas Coupland, book JPod
Source: JPod (2006)
Context: You know what? When you read a book, you’re totally lost in your own private world, and society says that’s a good and wonderful thing. But if you play a game by yourself, it’s this weird, fucked-up, socially damaging activity.
In my neighbourhood, all the teenage boys are dying because they’re driving their cars using videogame physics instead of real-world physics. They turn too quickly and change lanes too quickly. They don’t understand traction or centripetal force. And they’re dropping like flies.
Please stop putting quotes from Nietzsche at the end of your emails. Five years ago you were laughing your guts out over American Pie 2. What — suddenly you’ve magically turned into Noam Chomsky?
Don’t discuss Sony like it’s a great big benevolent cartoon character who lives next door to Astro Boy. Like any company, Sony is comprised of individuals who are fearful for their jobs on a daily basis, and who make lame decisions based pretty much on fear and conforming to social norms — but then, that’s every corporation on earth, so don’t single out one specific corporation as lovable and cute. They’re all evil and greedy. They’re all sort of in the moral middle ground, where good and bad cancel each other out, so there’s nothing really there — which, in it’s own way, far darker than any paranoid or patriarchal theory of Sony.
Here’s a much simpler example of geeks and neural processing malfunctions: Has anybody experienced a geek environment in which said geeks wear perfume or deodorant? Chances are no. While advanced microautistics are more commonly men than women, both share a marked dislike of scent.
— André Maurois French writer 1885 - 1967
Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Friendship
„Choosing not to read is like closing an open door to paradise“
— Mark Twain American author and humorist 1835 - 1910
— Ralph Waldo Emerson American philosopher, essayist, and poet 1803 - 1882
May 1849: This is a remark Emerson wrote referring to the unreliability of second hand testimony and worse upon the subject of immortality. It is often taken out of proper context, and has even begun appearing on the internet as "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know" or sometimes just "I hate quotations".
1820s, Journals (1822–1863)
Source: The Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson
— Desmond Tutu South African churchman, politician, archbishop, Nobel Prize winner 1931
Misattributed
— James Boswell Scottish lawyer, diarist and author 1740 - 1795
Source: Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides
„I quote fictional characters, because I'm a fictional character myself!“
— Carrie Fisher, book Wishful Drinking
Source: Wishful Drinking
„People who like quotes love meaningless generalizations“
— Graham Greene English writer, playwright and literary critic 1904 - 1991
„Random quotes don't constitute an argument.“
— Albert Einstein German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity 1879 - 1955