Quotes about the world
page 52
Judy McAden, Chapter 26, p. 314
Source: 2000s, The Rescue (2000)
Variant: The only true currency in this bankrupt world are the moments you share with someone when you're uncool.
Source: Almost Famous
The Solar Anus (1927)
Source: The Truth About Forever
“To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven.”
20 December 1822
1820s, Journals (1822–1863)
“If you can win over your mind, you can win over the whole world.”
“There's enough sorrow in the world, isn't there, without trying to invent it.”
Source: A Room with a View (1908), Ch. 2
“I guess I always felt even if the world came to an end, McDonald's would still be open.”
Source: Life As We Knew It
“Good, bad, and indifferent - It takes all sorts to make a world.”
Variant: It takes all sorts to make a world.
Source: The Wind in the Willows (1908), Ch. 4
Context: The Wild Wood is pretty well populated by now; with all the usual lot, good, bad, and indifferent — I name no names. It takes all sorts to make a world.
Interview with Alfred Werner, Liberal Judaism 16 (April-May 1949), Einstein Archive 30-1104, as sourced in The New Quotable Einstein by Alice Calaprice (2005), p. 173
Differing versions of such a statement are attributed to conversations as early as 1948 (e.g. The Rotarian, 72 (6), June 1948, p. 9 http://books.google.com/books?id=0UMEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA9: "I don't know. But I can tell you what they'll use in the fourth. They'll use rocks!"). Another variant ("I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones") is attributed to an unidentified letter to Harry S. Truman in "The culture of Einstein" by Alex Johnson http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7406337/, MSNBC, (18 April 2005). However, prior to 1948 very similar quotes were attributed in various articles to an unnamed army lieutenant, as discussed at Quote Investigator : "The Futuristic Weapons of WW3 Are Unknown, But WW4 Will Be Fought With Stones and Spears" http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/06/16/future-weapons/#more-679. The earliest found was from “Quote and Unquote: Raising ‘Alarmist’ Cry Brings a Winchell Reply” by Walter Winchell, in the Wisconsin State Journal (23 September 1946), p. 6, Col. 3. In this article Winchell wrote: <blockquote> Joe Laitin reports that reporters at Bikini were questioning an army lieutenant about what weapons would be used in the next war. “I dunno,” he said, “but in the war after the next war, sure as Hell, they’ll be using spears!” </blockquote>
: It seems plausible, therefore, that Einstein may have been quoting or paraphrasing an expression which he had heard or read elsewhere.
1940s
Variant: I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
“Providence looks after all the chumps of this world, and personally, I'm all for it.”
Variant: People want to be bowled over by something special. Nine times out of ten you can forget, but that tenth time, that peak experience, is what people want. That's what can move the world. That's art.
Source: South of the Border, West of the Sun
Source: The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
“It strikes me profoundly that the world is more often than not a bad and cruel place.”
Source: American Psycho
Source: All Rivers Flow To The Sea
“Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.”
Source: Transmetropolitan, Vol. 3: Year of the Bastard
“I think being a mother is the cruelest thing in the world.”
Source: The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen: Passing, Quicksand, and the Stories
“Anything seems possible at night when the rest of the world has gone to sleep.”
Source: My Name Is Mina
“It was at once a miracle and the most natural thing in the world.”
Source: Kitchen
“This world, it breathes you in … it knows you, and then it breathes you out again, shares you.”
Source: The Beauty of Darkness
“It's a wicked world, and when a clever man turns his brain to crime it is the worst of all.”
Source: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Source: The Other Voice: Essays on Modern Poetry
“the poisonous world flows into my mouth like water into that of a drowning man”
Source: Diaries of Franz Kafka
Source: Closer
Source: Tatiana and Alexander
Source: The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights
March 1937
Diary entries (1914 - 1974)
Source: The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934
Lyra to Pan in Ch. 38 : The Botanic Garden
Source: His Dark Materials, The Amber Spyglass (2000)
Context: "I remember. He meant the Kingdom was over, the Kingdom of Heaven, it was all finished. We shouldn’t live as if it mattered more than this life in this world, because where we are is always the most important place."
"He said we had to build something…"
"That’s why we needed our full life, Pan... we wouldn’t have been able to build it. No one could if they put themselves first. We have to be all those difficult things like cheerful and kind and curious and patient, and we’ve got to study and think and work hard, all of us, in all our different worlds, and then we’ll build…"
“This world is full of broken things: broken hearts, broken promises, broken people”
Source: The Unquiet
“The world is a prison in which solitary confinement is preferable.”
Half-Truths and One-And-A-Half Truths (1976)
Bartleby, the Scrivener (1853)
Source: Bartleby the Scrivener
Source: The Cat Who Saw Stars
Source: David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants
“The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be only the beginning.”
Part Three, Ch. 11
Source: On the Road (1957)
Context: In 1942 I was the star in one of the filthiest dramas of all time. I was a seaman, and went to the Imperial Café on Scollay Square in Boston to drink; I drank sixty glasses of beer and retired to the toilet, where I wrapped myself around the toilet bowl and went to sleep. During the night at least a hundred seamen and assorted civilians came in and cast their sentient debouchements on me till I was unrecognizably caked. What difference does it make after all? — anonymity in the world of men is better than fame in heaven, for what's heaven? what's earth? All in the mind.
As quoted in The 21st Century Elementary Library Media Program (2009) by Carl A. Harvey, p. 3
Source: Krondor: The Betrayal
“Here is the treasure chest of the world - the public library, or a bookstore.”
Source: Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence
Source: Zami: A New Spelling of My Name
Source: It's Called a Breakup Because It's Broken: The Smart Girl's Break-Up Buddy
“Because the world owes me nothing
And we owe each other the world.”
Joyful Girl
Song lyrics
“A different world cannot be built by indifferent people.”
Source: Pussy, King of the Pirates
“All I have to be thankful for in this world is that I was sitting down when my garter busted.”
Source: The Portable Dorothy Parker
36
1940s–present, Minority Report : H.L. Mencken's Notebooks (1956)
“The world's greatest champion of woman and womanhood is Jesus the Christ.”
Source: Jesus the Christ
“In my family, Father is the world champion at ending conversations.”
Source: Everything Is Illuminated
Source: And the Mountains Echoed
Letter to Besso's family (March 1955) following the death of Michele Besso, as quoted in Disturbing the Universe (1979) by Freeman Dyson Ch. 17 "A Distant Mirror", p. 193
Sometimes misquoted as "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."
1950s
Variant: "He has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. For us believing physicists, the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubborn illusion." Quoted in Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson (2008), p. 540 http://books.google.com/books?id=cdxWNE7NY6QC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA540#v=onepage&q&f=false.
Variant: "Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That signifies nothing. For us believing physicists, the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion." Quoted in Albert Einstein: The Miracle Mind by Tabatha Yeatts (2007), p. 116 http://books.google.com/books?id=XiyyVYvQBKQC&lpg=PP1&pg=PT114#v=onepage&q&f=false.
Variant: "In quitting this strange world he has once again preceded me by a little. That doesn't mean anything. For those of us who believe in physics, this separation between past, present, and future is only an illusion, however tenacious." Quoted in The Structure of Physics by Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker (1985), p. 288 http://books.google.com/books?id=DeexONN0zDgC&lpg=PR2&pg=PA288#v=onepage&q&f=false.
Variant: "Now he has departed a little ahead of me from this quaint world. This means nothing. For us faithful physicists, the separation between past, present, and future has only the meaning of an illusion, though a persistent one." Quoted in Einstein and Religion by Max Jammer (2002), p. 161 http://books.google.com/books?id=TnCc1f1C25IC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA161#v=onepage&q&f=false.
Variant: "Now he has preceded me by a little bit in his departure from this strange world as well. This means nothing. For those of us who believe in physics, the distinction between past, present, and future is only an illusion, however tenacious this illusion may be." Quoted in Einstein: A Biography by Jürgen Neff (2007), p. 402 http://books.google.com/books?id=B8K6n177ZwcC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA402#v=onepage&q&f=false
