“Avoid those who seek friends in order to maintain a certain social status or to open doors they would not otherwise be able to approach.”

— Paulo Coelho , book Manuscript Found in Accra

Source: Manuscript Found in Accra

Last update March 30, 2023. History

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Paulo Coelho 844

Brazilian lyricist and novelist 1947

Ralph Smart

“How should one approach the person of van Gogh in order to be able to build a statue of him? How can one place him outside of himself, separate him from the tragic character of his life? How can one build a statue in the open air which simultaneously evokes the rare and the new person who was van Gogh, as also the enormity of the new aspect of the current and future art of painting?”

Ossip Zadkine (1890–1967) French sculptor

Quote in: 'Le Maillet et le Ciseau', (early 1956); as quoted in Zadkine and Van Gogh, ed. Garance Schabert and Ron Dirven (transl. Anne Porcelijn), Vincent van Goghhuis, Zundert & Scriptum Art, Schiedam 2008, p.29
1940 - 1960

“No one can really help you. No one can open your doors. You locked them up, and only you can open them. When you open any door, beyond it you find others standing there who had passed you long ago, but now, unable to proceed, they are there waiting; others are there waiting for you. Then you come, and, opening a door, those waiting disciples perhaps may pass on; thus on and on. What a privilege this, to reflect that we may perhaps be able to help those who seemed greater than ourselves!”

William Quan Judge (1851–1896) American occult writer

Vol. I, Letter 1
Letters That Have Helped Me (1891)

“Those who are in poverty may be able to get a bare sustenance but they are not able to obtain those necessaries which will permit them to maintain a state of physical efficiency.”

Robert Hunter (author) (1874–1942) American sociologist, author, golf course architect

Source: Poverty (1912), p. 5

“No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened.'”

Clive Staples Lewis book The Great Divorce

Source: The Great Divorce (1944–1945), Ch. 9, p. 72; part of this has also been rendered in a variant form, and quoted as:
Context: 'But what of the poor Ghosts who never get into the omnibus at all?'
'Everyone who wishes it does. Never fear. There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened.'

“A comedian is not a person who opens a funny door — he's the person who opens a door funny.”

Chuck Jones (1912–2002) American animator, cartoon artist, screenwriter, producer, and director of animated films

John Lewell, "The Art of Chuck Jones: John Lewell Interviews the Veteran Hollywood Animator [1982]," in Animation - Art and Industry, ed. Maureen Furniss (John Libby Publishing Ltd., 2009), 134. Jones was paraphrasing Ed Wynn who was in turn paraphrasing Fred Allen.
Source: “A comic says funny things; a comedian says things funny”, Barry Popik, November 10, 2015, January 7, 2017 http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/a_comic_says_funny_things/,

“A comedian is not a man who opens a funny door. He opens a door funny.”

Ed Wynn (1886–1966) American actor

Hedda Hooper, November 1 1960, “Comic Ed Wynn, Winning Still, Discusses Craft”, Buffalo (NY) Courier-Express, pg. 6, col. 1. Wynn was paraphrasing Fred Allen. “A comic says funny things; a comedian says things funny”, Barry Popik, November 10, 2015, January 7, 2017 http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/a_comic_says_funny_things/,

“Merely pointing to the fact that some people have a lot more than others is less compelling as a critique; it invites the response “So what? Those who have more aren’t hurting anybody; you’re just appealing to envy.” By contrast, being able to show that those who enjoy a higher socioeconomic status have to a considerable extent achieved and maintained that status by forcibly expropriating and oppressing the less affluent provides for a far more effective indictment.”

Roderick Long (1964) American philosopher

Source: "Left-libertarianism, market anarchism, class conflict and historical theories of distributive justice" (2012), p. 425

“Those who are served by the present limit-situation regard the untested feasibility as a threatening limit-situation which must not be allowed to materialize, and act to maintain the status quo.”

Paulo Freire (1921–1997) educator and philosopher

Source: Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970), Chapter 3, on the oppressive status quo

“But the answer to the attacks must be more democracy and more openness. Otherwise, those who were behind them will have achieved their goals.”

Jens Stoltenberg (1959) Norwegian politician, 13th Secretary-General of NATO, 27th Prime Minister of Norway

Men svaret på angrepene må være mer demokrati og mer åpenhet. I motsatt fall vil de som sto bak, ha oppnådd sine mål.
Following the attacks of 22 July 2011 in Oslo and Utøya
"Statsministeren: – Svaret er enda mer åpenhet." http://dt.no/nyheter/statsministeren-svaret-er-enda-mer-apenhet-1.6379832 dt.no. 23 July 2011. (In Norwegian.)
2010s

“Avoid those who seek friends in order to maintain a certain social status or to open doors they would not otherwise be able to approach.”

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Paulo Coelho 844

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