“Everytime you cut off somebody else's opportunity you shrink your own horizon”
Bill Clinton on why he helps other people. http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/videos/z4m9xu/colbert-galactic-initiative---bill-clinton-pt--1, August 2013
2010s
Context: I want to leave my daughter, and my grandchildren I hope to have and all these young people, a better world. And I think the reason you should do things for other people at bottom is selfish. There is no real difference between selfish and selfless if you understand how the world works. We all tied together. [... ] Everytime you cut off somebody else's opportunity you shrink your own horizon.
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Bill Clinton 99
42nd President of the United States 1946Related quotes
Misquoted by Mitt Romney " These Hands http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLZpMFbxyxU" campaign ad ()
[2012-07-19, Romney video deceptively edits Obama speech to make it sound anti-business, Greg, Sargent, The Plum Line, The Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/the-morning-plum-romney-video-deceptively-edits-obama-speech-to-make-it-sound-anti-business/2012/07/19/gJQAoRpavW_blog.html, 2012-10-08]
The Web version of the ad http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Lr49t4-2b8 uses a <span style="color:grey">longer misquote</span>: "If you've been successful, you didn't get there on your own. You didn't get there on your own. I'm always struck by people who think, "well, it must be because I was just so smart." There are a lot of smart people out there. "It must be because I worked harder than everybody else." Let me tell you something — if you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen.
Splices two parts of a speech in Roanoke, Virginia on (see above). Full quote:
<p>There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me — because they want to give something back. They know they didn't — look, <span style="color:darkgrey">if you've been successful, you didn't get there on your own.</span> <span style="color:grey">You didn't get there on your own. I'm always struck by people who think, "well, it must be because I was just so smart." There are a lot of smart people out there. "It must be because I worked harder than everybody else." Let me tell you something —</span> there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.</p><p>If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges; <span style="color:darkgrey">if you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen.</span> The Internet didn't get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.</p>
Misattributed
“If you cut a branch out of my forests, I'd cut your head off!”
Source: Aşıkpaşaoğlu History
“If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.”
“The quality of owning freezes you forever in "I," and cuts you off forever from the "we.”
Source: The Grapes of Wrath
Source: The Wind in the Willows (1908), Ch. 2
1950s, Loving Your Enemies (November 1957)
Context: Somewhere somebody must have some sense. Men must see that force begets force, hate begets hate, toughness begets toughness. And it is all a descending spiral, ultimately ending in destruction for all and everybody. Somebody must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate and the chain of evil in the universe. And you do that by love.
