“Never whine. Whining lets a brute know that a victim is in the neighborhood.”

— Maya Angelou, book Letter to My Daughter

Variant: Whining is not only graceless, but can be dangerous. It can alert a brute that a victim is in the neighborhood.
Source: Letter to My Daughter

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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American author and poet 1928–2014

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“[On the victims of the hurricane Katrina] "Here in Idaho, we couldn't understand how people could sit around on the kerbs waiting for the federal government to come and do something. We had a dam break in 1976, but we didn't whine about it. We got out our backhoes and we rebuilt the roads and replanted the fields and got on with our lives. That's the culture here. Not waiting for the federal government to bring you drinking water. In Idaho there would have been entrepreneurs selling the drinking water."”

Jim Risch (1943) American politician

Quoted in Guardian, August 31, 2007. http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/mark_schmitt/2007/08/the_real_hypocrisy_of_idaho_co.html

“Let's pour wine in coffee cups and drive around the neighborhood
And shine the headlights on houses until all the news is good.”

St. Vincent (musician) (1982) American singer-songwriter

"The Neighbors"
Actor (2009)

“[On the attendees at the launch of Apollo 11] Those people were not a stampeding herd, nor a manipulated mob; they did not wreck the Florida communities, they did not devastate the countryside, they did not throw themselves, like whining thugs, at the mercy of their victims - they did not create any victims. They came as responsible individuals able to project the reality of two or three days ahead, and to provide for their own needs. There were people of every age, creed, color, educational level and economic status. They lived and slept in tents, or in their cars, some for several days, in great discomfort and unbearable heat; they did it gamely, cheerfully, gaily; they projected a general feeling of confident goodwill, the bond of a common enthusiasm; they created a public spectacle of responsible privacy - and they departed as they had come, without benefit of press agents.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

Apollo and Dionysus (1969)

“Are you trying to get run over by a cab?"

"Don't be ridiculous. We could never get a cab that easily in this neighborhood.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

“Thou shall not be a perpetrator, thou shall not be a victim, and thou shall never, but never, be a bystander.”

Yehuda Bauer (1926) Israeli historian of the Holocaust

As quoted in The Legacy of the Holocaust (2011) by Jason Skog, p. 57.

“This is what I know. The ward is a factory for the Combine. It's for fixing up mistakes made in the neighborhoods and in the schools and in the churches, the hospital is.”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962), Ch. 4
Context: This is what I know. The ward is a factory for the Combine. It's for fixing up mistakes made in the neighborhoods and in the schools and in the churches, the hospital is. When a completed product goes back out into society, all fixed up good as new, better than new sometimes, it brings joy to the Big Nurse's heart; something that came in all twisted and different is now a functioning, adjusted component, a credit to the whole outfit and a marvel to behold.

“Sometimes, Ms. Lane,” he said, “one must break with one’s past to embrace one’s future. It is never
an easy thing to do. It is one of the distinguishing characteristics between survivors and victims.
Letting go of what was, to survive what is.”

Karen Marie Moning book Darkfever

Variant: Sometimes, Ms. Lane," he said, "one must break with one's past to embrace one's future. It is never an easy thing to do. It is one of the distinguishing characteristics between survivors and victims. Letting go of what was, to survive what is.
Source: Darkfever

“There goes the neighborhood.”

Rodney Dangerfield (1921–2004) American actor and comedian

Epitaph, quoted in Patricia Brooks, Laid to Rest in California (2006), p. 20

“The trees in sunny neighborhoods”

Vitruvius book De architectura

Source: De architectura (The Ten Books On Architecture) (~ 15BC), Book II, Chapter X "Highland and Lowland Fir" Sec. 1
Context: Trees which grow in places facing the course of the sun are not of porous fiber but are solid, being drained by the dryness... The trees in sunny neighborhoods, therefore, being solidified by the compact texture of their fiber, and not being porous from moisture, are very useful, so far as durability goes, when they are hewn into timber. The lowland firs, being conveyed from sunny places, are better than those highland firs, which are brought here from shady places.

“We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”

Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor

“Never whine. Whining lets a brute know that a victim is in the neighborhood.”

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