“… the point is, why is there cruelty? Why do people ask other people to do impossible things? why behave this way? why is there mean, when there are better things than mean, love particularly?”
Adverbs (2006), Particularly
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Daniel Handler190
American novelist, children's writer, creator of Lemony Sni… 1970Related quotes
Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer
Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass
Robert F. Kennedy (1925–1968) American politician and brother of John F. Kennedy
Though Kennedy stated that he was quoting George Bernard Shaw when he said this, he is often thought to have originated the expression, which actually paraphrases a line delivered by the Serpent in Shaw's play Back To Methuselah: “You see things; and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say, ‘Why not?’". This phrase was first used by his brother John F. Kennedy in 1963 (June 28th), during his visit to Ireland, in his address to the Irish Dail (Government): "George Bernard Shaw, speaking as an Irishman, summed up an approach to life, 'Other people, he said, see things and say why? But I dream things that never were and I say, why not?" ( Address on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ADeazX9blw.). Robert's other brother Edward famously quoted it (paraphrasing it even further), to conclude his eulogy to his late brother after his assassination (8 June 1968): Some men see things as they are and say why? I dream things that never were and say why not? - (Eulogy in CBS news video) http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5268061n <br class="br">Misattributed <br class="br">Source: Robert Kennedy in His Own Words: The Unpublished Recollections of the Kennedy Years
George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian
Cf. Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah (1921), Pt. I : In the Beginning: I hear you say "Why?" Always "Why?" You see things; and you say "Why?" But I dream things that never were; and I say "Why not?"
Books, Brain Droppings (1997)
Variant: Some people dream of things that never were and ask, Why not? Some people have to go to work and don't have time for all that shit.
Trent Lott (1941) United States Senator from Mississippi
On Sunnis and Shia, as quoted in CNN http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/blogs/politicalticker/2006/09/lott-bush-barely-mentioned-iraq-in.html (2006). <br class="br">2000s
Ikujiro Nonaka (1935) Japanese business theorist
"The Practical Wisdom of Ikujiro Nonaka," 2008
