Quotes about anyone
page 3

“Violence has never prospered, you can't remake the world in a day. Anyone who promises to change everything for you all at once is either a fool or a rogue!”

Emile Zola (1840–1902) French writer (1840-1902)

World, Fools, Change

“Great! I've written something stupid, but I haven't signed a contract with anyone to produce solely wise and perfect works. I gave vent to my stupidity… and here I am, reborn.”

Witold Gombrowicz book Ferdydurke

Source: Ferdydurke

Stupidity, Perfection

“My best advice to anyone who wants to raise a happy, mentally healthy child is: Keep him or her as far away from a church as you can.”

Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer

Happiness

“Anyone who falls in love is searching for missing pieces of themselves. So anyone who's in love gets sad when they think of their lover. It's like stepping back inside a room you have fond memories of, one you haven't seen in a long time. It's just a natural feeling. You're not the person who discovered that feeling, so don't go trying to patent it, okay?”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Kafka on the Shore (2002)

Love, Sadness, Feeling, Search

“Anyone can be a barbarian; it requires a terrible effort to remain a civilized man.”

Leonard Woolf (1880–1969) English political theorist, author, publisher and civil servant

Effort

“Giving anyone anything takes courage, since so many presents backfire. A gift conspicuously at odds with your tastes serves only to betray that the benefactor has no earthly clue who you are.”

Lionel Shriver book The Post-Birthday World

Source: The Post-Birthday World

Courage

“The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive.”

Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) American science fiction author

Life

“The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life. To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair.”

Walker Percy book The Moviegoer

Variant: What is the nature of the search? you ask. The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life. To become aware of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair.
Source: The Moviegoer (1961)
Context: To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair. The movies are onto the search, but they screw it up. The search always ends in despair. They like to show a fellow coming to himself in a strange place-but what does he do? He takes up with the local librarian, sets about proving to the local children what a nice fellow he is, and settles down with a vengeance. In two weeks time he is so sunk in everydayness that he might just as well be dead.

Life, Search, Despair

“All assassins had a full-length mirror in their rooms, because it would be a terrible insult to anyone to kill them when you were badly dressed.”

Terry Pratchett book Pyramids

Source: Pyramids

“You can never really live anyone else's life, not even your child's. The influence you exert is through your own life, and what you've become yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

Life

“Having never discovered qualities in myself that might attract someone else, I could never believe that anyone felt attracted to me.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

“No one loses anyone, because no one owns anyone. That is the true experience of freedom: having the most important thing in the world without owning it.”

Paulo Coelho book Eleven Minutes

Variant: i am convinced that no one loses anyone, because no one owns anyone.
that is the true experience of freedom:having the most important thing in the world without owning it.
Source: Eleven Minutes

World, Freedom

“Having kids — the responsibility of rearing good, kind, ethical, responsible human beings — is the biggest job anyone can embark on”

Maria Shriver (1955) journalist and author from the United States

Mother's Day, For Mother

“Untroubled, scornful, outrageous - that is how wisdom wants us to be: she is a woman and never loves anyone but a warrior.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Source: Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Love, Wisdom

“In love, no one can harm anyone else; we are each of us responsible for our own feelings and cannot blame someone else for what we feel.”

Paulo Coelho book Eleven Minutes

Source: Eleven Minutes (2003), p. 97.
Context: In love, no one can harm anyone else; we are each of us responsible for our own feelings and cannot blame someone else for what we feel. It hurt when I lost each of the various men I fell in love with. Now, though, I am convinced that no one loses anyone, because no one owns anyone. That is the true experience of freedom: having the most important thing in the world without owning it.

Love, Feeling

“A feminist is anyone who recognizes the equality and full humanity of women and men.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

For women, Women, Men

“My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me.”

Jim Valvano (1946–1993) American basketball player-coach

Attitude, love, Father's Day, For Father

“We could mate. In a year our nestlings would be large enough to mob anyone we like… Should I begin to court you? Do you like grubs or ants better?… I will be here. In case you change your mind about mating.”

Tamora Pierce (1954) American writer of fantasy novels for children

Source: Trickster's Choice

Change

“You know, ogres only sound stupid. Most are pretty smart."

"And it's a shallow person who judges anyone by the way they sound. I'm so shallow I'm surprised I don't reflect myself.”

Tamora Pierce book First Test

Source: First Test

Stupidity, Way, Personality

“As the years pass, the number of those we can communicate with diminishes. When there is no longer anyone to talk to, at last we will be as we were before stooping to a name.”

Emil M. Cioran book The Trouble With Being Born

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)
Source: The Trouble with Being Born

Communication

“Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

Intelligence, Memory

“She feels lonely all the time, she wants to be accepted, by anyone, on any terms, but she feels apart. As if nobody who really got to know her would trust her.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Feeling, Time

“Evil in general does not sleep, and therefore doesn't see why anyone else should.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Source: Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

Sleep, Evil

“I never could bear the idea of anyone's expecting something from me. It
always made me want to do just the opposite.”

Jean Paul Sartre No Exit

Source: No Exit

Idea

“If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer … It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled. Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states.
We are, and always will be, the United States of America.
It's the answer that led those who've been told for so long by so many to be cynical and fearful and doubtful about what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.
It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this date in this election at this defining moment, change has come to America.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2008, Election victory speech (November 2008)

World, Fear, Dreams, Hope

“But I had loved him. I loved him longer and truer than I had anyone in my whole life and I would probably never love anyone that way again. Which to be honest was almost a relief.”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Source: It's Not Summer Without You

Love, Life, Way

“Anyone can become angry —that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way —this is not easy.”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy

Source: Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ
Source: ARISTOTLE, The Nicomachean Ethics

Way, Time, Personality

“He died alone because he was too embarrassed to phone anyone.”

Nicole Krauss The History of Love

Source: The History of Love

“I don’t care about anyone, and the feeling is quite obviously mutual.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Feeling

“WHO KNOWS WHAT EVIL LURKS IN THE HEART OF MEN?

The Death of Rats looked up from the feast of the potato. SQUEAK, he said.

Death waved a hand dismissively. WELL, YES, OBVIOUSLY ME, he said. I JUST WONDERED IF THERE WAS ANYONE ELSE.”

Terry Pratchett book The Truth

Source: The Truth

Death, Men, Evil, Heart

“Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”

Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pentalogy

Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“I believe that anyone can conquer fear by doing the things he fears to do…”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

Fear

“I do not understand how anyone can live without some small place of enchantment to turn to.”

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1896–1953) American novelist

Understanding

“Anyone can slay a dragon… but try waking up every morning and loving the world all over again. That's what takes a real hero.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Love, World

“The man who does not value himself, cannot value anything or anyone.”

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

Source: The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism

“A person can be lonely even if he is loved by many people, because he is still not the "One and Only" to anyone.”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

29 December 1943
The Diary of a Young Girl (1942 - 1944)
Variant: You can be lonely even when you're loved by many people, since you're still not anybody's "one and only".
Source: Cliffs Notes on Frank's The Diary of Anne Frank

Love, People, Personality

“His cold eyes stared at me. At last, he said wearily: "I have more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He alone has kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people.”

Elie Wiesel book Night

Source: Night (1960)
Context: "Don't be deluded. Hitler has made it clear that he will annihilate all Jews before the clock strikes twelve."
I exploded:
"What do you care what he said? Would you want us to consider him a prophet?"
His cold eyes stared at me. At last, he said wearily:
"I have more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He alone has kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people."

People, Faith

“You cannot learn what you are made of if you rely on anyone or anything else to help you.”

Christopher Paolini book Inheritance

Source: Inheritance

Learning, Help

“But anyone with the time and the inclination can acquire technical proficiency. To achieve greatness, though, that requires artistry. That requires imagination and thoughtfulness…”

Christopher Paolini book Inheritance

Source: Inheritance

Imagination, Time

“Anyone who thinks must think of the next war as they would of suicide.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

Source: Eleanor and Franklin

War, Thinking, Suicide

“Anyone who proposes to do good must not expect people to roll stones out of his way, but must accept his lot calmly if they even roll a few more upon it.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

Source: The Spiritual Life (1947), p. 164
Context: Anyone who proposes to do good must not expect people to roll stones out of his way, but must accept his lot calmly if they even roll a few more upon it. A strength which becomes clearer and stronger through its experience of such obstacles is the only strength that can conquer them. Resistance is only a waste of strength.

People, Way

“I wonder if anyone can ever succeed in making their children content.”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

Source: The Diary of a Young Girl

Children

“When I like people immensely I never tell their names to anyone. It is like surrendering a part of them. I have grown to love secrecy.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Love, People, Parting

“Because a thing seems difficult for you, do not think it impossible for anyone to accomplish.”

Marcus Aurelius (121–180) Emperor of Ancient Rome

Source: The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

Thinking

“There is not a woman born who desires to eat the bread of dependence, no matter whether it be from the hand of father, husband, or brother; for anyone who does so eat her bread places herself in the power of the person from whom she takes it.”

Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) American women's rights activist

Dependency, Personality

“Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Carlin on Campus (1984)

Funny

“It's paradoxical that the idea of living a long life appeals to everyone, but the idea of getting old doesn't appeal to anyone.”

Andy Rooney (1919–2011) writer, humorist, television personality

Life, Idea

“I think it's IMPOSSIBLE for anyone famous to come from here, because everyone around here is insane.”

Terry Pratchett book Johnny and the Dead

Source: Johnny and the Dead

Thinking

“Do not let anyone stop you from succeding”

Sharon M. Draper (1948) American children's writer

“I asked the question for the best reason possible, for the only reason, indeed, that excuses anyone for asking any question - simple curiosity.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Question

“I can never be satisfied with anyone who would be blockhead enough to have me.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Letter to Mrs. Orville H. Browning (1 April 1838) http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln1/1:134?rgn=div1;view=fulltext, Cllected Works, vol. 1. p. 119 <br class="br">1830s <br class="br">Context: I have now come to the conclusion never again to think of marrying, and for this reason; I can never be satisfied with anyone who would be blockhead enough to have me.

“anyone who’s worth anything reads just what he likes, as the mood takes him, and with extravagant enthusiasm.”

Virginia Woolf book Jacob's Room

Variant: But then anyone who's worth anything reads just what he likes, as the mood takes him, and with extravagant enthusiasm.
Source: Jacob's Room

Mood, Reading

“Love is not liking somebody. Anyone can do that. Love is loving things that sometimes you don't like.”

Ajahn Brahm (1951) Buddhist monk

Love

“Man is by nature a social animal; an individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either beneath our notice or more than human. Society is something that precedes the individual. Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society, is either a beast or a god.”

Aristotle book Politics

Source: Politics

Life, God, Nature, Animals

“Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Feeling, Strong, Personality

“If you have a beautiful face you don’t need fake boobs to get anyone’s attention”

Paris Hilton (1981) American socialite

Beauty

“It's hard to hold the hand of anyone who is reaching for the sky just to surrender”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

“"I forgot that's what gets you all hot and bothered, Jace. Girls killing things."
"I like anyone killing things," He said equably, "Especially me."”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Isabelle and Jace, pg. 337
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Bones (2007)

Girl

“Anyone who is steady in his determination for the advanced stage of spiritual realization and can equally tolerate the onslaughts of distress and happiness is certainly a person eligible for liberation.”

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977) Indian guru

Source: The Bhagavad-gita

Personality, Happiness

“Halfway down the aisle, Jamie suddenly seemed to tire, and they stopped while she caught her breath… It was, I remembered thinking, the most difficult walk anyone ever had to make. In every way, a walk to remember.”

Nicholas Sparks book A Walk to Remember

Source: A Walk to Remember

Way, Thinking

“There is no man on the face of the earth who can satisfy the deepest longings of a woman's heart--God made us in such a way that we can never be truly satisfied with anything or anyone less than Himself”

Nancy Leigh DeMoss (1958) American radio host

God, Way, Heart

“Anyone who isn't confused doesn't really understand the situation.”

Edward R. Murrow (1908–1965) Television journalist

As quoted in The Improbable Irish (1969) by Walter Bryan

Understanding

“An Assassin, a real Assassin, had to look like one - black clothes, hood, boots, and all. If they could wear any clothes, any disguise, then what could anyone do but spend all day in a small room with a loaded crossbow pointed at the door?”

Terry Pratchett book Night Watch

Source: Night Watch

Clothes

“In essence, you are neither inferior nor superior to anyone. True self-esteem and true humility arise out of that realization. In the eyes of the ego, self-esteem and humility are contradictory. In truth, they are one and the same.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

Truth

“Anyone can write. Some people can write a bit better than others; they're called authors. Then there are some who can write better than authors; they're called artists.”

Walter Moers (1957) German comic creator and author

People

“Sex and excretion are reminders that anyone's claim to round-the-clock dignity is tenuous. The so-called rational animal has a desperate drive to pair up and moan and writhe.”

Steven Pinker (1954) psychologist, linguist, author

Sex, Animals

“Now," snapped the Dean, "we've searchedfor a decent library on this island. There simply isn't one! It's ridiculous. How is anyone supposed to get anything done?”

Terry Pratchett book The Last Continent

Source: The Last Continent

“The essence of warriorship, or the essence of human bravery, is refusing to give up on anyone or anything.”

Chögyam Trungpa book Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior

Source: Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior

“Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Variant: Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.

Funny, Imagination, Suffering

“My dearest life, I know you are not mine forever; but do love me even if it’s for this moment. After that I shall vanish into the forest where you cast me, I won’t ask anyone for anything again. Give me something that can last me till I die.”

Rabindranath Tagore book Chokher Bali

Source: Chokher Bali

Love, Life

“Write books only if you are going to say in them the things you would never dare confide to anyone.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

Books, Confidence

“Anyone who is disturbed by the idea of newts in a nightclub is potentially dangerous.”

Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer

Idea

“Lord, may the pain be ours, And the weakness that it brings, But at least give us the strength, Of not showing it to anyone!”

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher

Source: Poems of Fernando Pessoa

Pain

“But what do I have? The things I'm told and the things I tell, that's all. And as far as I know, that never yet made anyone fly.”

Mario Vargas Llosa book The Storyteller

Source: The Storyteller

Flying

“I do not believe anyone can be perfectly well, who has a brain and a heart”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

Heart

“But probably that's the way of the world - when we have finally learned something we're too old to apply it - and so it goes, wave after wave, generation after generation. No one learns anything at all from anyone else.”

Erich Maria Remarque book The Black Obelisk

Source: The Black Obelisk

World, Way, Learning

“Daddy gave me real useful information to protect me in the real world. If anyone hits me, I'm not to hit them back. I wait until their back is turned, then hit them in the head with a brick.”

Fannie Flagg book Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man

Source: Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man

World, Waiting

“Abu Hurayra reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "On the Day of Rising, Allah will not look at anyone who drags his waist-wrapper out of pride."”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 4, hadith number 616
Sunni Hadith
Variant: Abu Hurayra reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "Part of the excellence of a person's Islam is his leaving alone what does not concern him."

Peace

“Robin was an outgrowth of a conversation I had with Bob. As I said, Batman was a combination of Fairbanks and Sherlock Holmes. Holmes had his Watson. The thing that bothered me was that Batman didn't have anyone to talk to, and it got a little tiresome always having him thinking. I found that as I went along Batman needed a Watson to talk to. That's how Robin came to be. Bob called me over and said he was going to put a boy in the strip to identify with Batman. I thought it was a great idea”

Bill Finger (1914–1974) American comic strip and comic book writer

[Jim Steranko, The Steranko History of Comics, Supergraphics, Reading, Pa., 1970, ISBN 0-517-50188-0, p.44]
Variant: Robin was an outgrowth of a conversation I had with Bob. As I said, Batman was a combination of Fairbanks and Sherlock Holmes. Holmes had his Watson. The thing that bothered me was that Batman didn't have anyone to talk to, and it got a little tiresome always having him thinking. I found that as I went along Batman needed a Watson to talk to. That's how Robin came to be. Bob called me over and said he was going to put a boy in the strip to identify with Batman. I thought it was a great idea

Boy, Idea, Thinking

“I don't trust or love anyone. Because people are all creepy. Creepy creepy creeps. Creeping around. Creeping here and creeping there. Creeping everywhere. Crippity crappity creepies.”

Vincent Gallo (1961) American film director, writer, model, actor and musician

Grand Royal Interview

Love, People

“Don’t listen to what people tell you because they’ll try to bring you down. And don’t listen to yourself, either, because yourself will try to bring you down even more so than anyone else. As long as you just put all your energy into one thing, it can happen.”

Chris Colfer (1990) actor, singer, book author

Personal Quotes 2009–2012

People

“You can kill people with compassion. That's the Freudian Oedipal situation. Think about working in a nursing home. There's a rule of thumb that we can use as a guide when interacting with people in general. It is this: Do not do anything for anyone that they can do themselves. You just steal it from them. Imagine that you're working with elderly people. It might be easier to do something for them than to let them struggle through it. You just speed their demise by taking away their last vestiges of independence. People do the same thing with kids. The answer is: struggle through it. When people struggle through things on their own, using their own abilities - they learn how to live. You have to be one heard-hearted sonofabitch to allow this, but it's what's best for people. Think about that. What's the alternative? If we cater to people all the time, then we end up becoming a major cause of them becoming people who are always catered to. This is an incredibly important lesson in the triumph of fostering independence over casual compassion.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Concepts

People, Home, Imagination, Thinking

“I tell myself that anyone who says he has finished a canvas is terribly arrogant. Finished means complete, perfect, and I toil away without making any progress, searching, fumbling around, without achieving anything much.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

Claude Monet, 1893; as quoted in: David W. Galenson (2009), Painting outside the Lines, p. 49
1890 - 1900

Search, Perfection

“My attitude toward punctuation is that it ought to be as conventional as possible. The game of golf would lose a good deal if croquet mallets and billiard cues were allowed on the putting green. You ought to be able to show that you can do it a good deal better than anyone else with the regular tools before you have a license to bring in your own improvements.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Letter (15 May 1925); published in Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters 1917–1961 (1981) edited by Carlos Baker

Game

“Anyone who wants something else is Jewish.”

Imre Kertész (1929–2016) Hungarian writer

Source: Detective Story (2008), p. 13.

“'Amr ibn Shu'ayb's grandfather said, "The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "Anyone who does not show mercy to our young people nor honour our old people is not one of us."”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 3, hadith number 355
Sunni Hadith

People, Peace

“I keep having the same experience and keep resisting it every time. I do not want to believe it although it is palpable: the great majority of people lack an intellectual conscience. Indeed, it has often seemed to me as if anyone calling for an intellectual conscience were as lonely in the most densely populated cities as if he were in a desert. Everybody looks at you with strange eyes and goes right on handling his scales, calling this good and that evil. Nobody even blushes when you intimate that their weights are underweight; nor do people feel outraged; they merely laugh at your doubts. I mean: the great majority of people does not consider it contemptible to believe this or that and to live accordingly, without first having given themselves an account of the final and most certain reasons pro and con, and without even troubling themselves about such reasons afterward: the most gifted men and the noblest women still belong to this "great majority." But what is goodheartedness, refinement, or genius to me, when the person who has these virtues tolerates slack feelings in his faith and judgments and when he does not account the desire for certainty as his inmost craving and deepest distress--as that which separates the higher human beings from the lower.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Sec. 2
The Gay Science (1882)

Women, Men, People, Faith

“By Him in Whose Hand my soul is I was about to order for collecting fire-wood (fuel) and then order Someone to pronounce the Adhan for the prayer and then order someone to lead the prayer then I would go from behind and burn the houses of men who did not present themselves for the (compulsory congregational) prayer. By Him, in Whose Hands my soul is, if anyone of them had known that he would get a bone covered with good meat or two (small) pieces of meat present in between two ribs, he would have turned up for the 'Isha' prayer.”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Sahih Bukhari Volume 001, Book 011, Hadith Number 617.
Sunni Hadith

Men, Soul, Housing

““I didn’t want to scare you. We don’t want to scare anyone.”
“No? Well, sometimes it’s a good thing to scare people. Sometimes fear is all that will keep them from doing stupid things.””

Octavia E. Butler book Adulthood Rites

Part II “Phoenix” chapter 15 (p. 381).
Adulthood Rites (1988)

People, Stupidity, Fear

“"Our Second Experiment", the Professor announced, as Bruno returned to his place, still thoughtfully rubbing his elbows, "is the production of that seldom-seen-but-greatly-to-be-admired phenomenon, Black Light! You have seen White Light, Red Light, Green Light, and so on: but never, till this wonderful day, have any eyes but mine seen Black Light! This box", carefully lifting it upon the table, and covering it with a heap of blankets, "is quite full of it. The way I made it was this - I took a lighted candle into a dark cupboard and shut the door. Of course the cupboard was then full of Yellow Light. Then I took a bottle of Black ink, and poured it over the candle: and, to my delight, every atom of the Yellow Light turned Black! That was indeed the proudest moment of my life! Then I filled a box with it. And now - would anyone like to get under the blankets and see it?"Dead silence followed this appeal: but at last Bruno said "I'll get under, if it won't jingle my elbows."Satisfied on this point, Bruno crawled under the blankets, and, after a minute or two, crawled out again, very hot and dusty, and with his hair in the wildest confusion."What did you see in the box?" Sylvie eagerly enquired."I saw nuffin!" Bruno sadly replied. "It were too dark!""He has described the appearance of the thing exactly!"”

Lewis Carroll book Sylvie and Bruno

the Professor exclaimed with enthusiasm. "Black Light, and Nothing, look so extremely alike, at first sight, that I don't wonder he failed to distinguish them! We will now proceed to the Third Experiment."</p>
Source: Sylvie and Bruno Concluded (1893), Chapter 21: The Professor's Lecture

Life, Way, Light, Silence

“Lewis has written that "man makes history." Althusser unleashes a pamphlet at him maintaining that such is not the case: "Ce sont les masses qui font I'histoire." I challenge anyone to find a social scientist outside the Marxist camp who can seriously pose a problem of this type.”

Norberto Bobbio (1909–2004) Italian legal scholar

Source: Telos Nr. 35-38, (1978), p. 11

History, Problem

“As the variable capital always stays in the hands of the capitalist in some form or other, it cannot be claimed in any way that it converts itself into revenue for anyone.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Vol. II, Ch. XX, p. 452.
(Buch II) (1893)

Way

“The rose is without 'why'; it blooms simply because it blooms. It pays no attention to itself, nor does it ask whether anyone sees it.”

Angelus Silesius book Cherubinischer Wandersmann

Die Ros ist ohn warum; sie blühet weil sie blühet, Sie acht nicht ihrer selbst, fragt nicht, ob man sie siehet.
Cherubinischer Wandersmann, Sämtliche Poetische Werke (1949), Vol. I

“People think I'm unusual but it's just that we haven't had anyone like this since the Seventies.”

Lady Gaga (1986) American singer, songwriter, and actress

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/showbiz/xs/334051/Lady-GaGa-breaks-up-with-LA-entrepreneur-Speedy.html, May 30, 2009.

People, Thinking

“He was conscious that something in [his] personality bolstered his confidence and allowed him to rest, to seek peace and find it. He never game a name to it, and never spoke of it. And never, never would he have allowed himself or anyone to call it – love”

Alice Borchardt book The Dragon Queen

The Dragon Queen

Love, Peace, Confidence, Game

“I'm a stand-up. And no one on the circuit's terribly impressed if you're on TV. I suppose I've stolen my ethos from Jay Leno. You can do all the TV in the world, but that's a team game, and anyone can be dropped from the squad. And if you haven't gigged in a while, you're not firing, you're not match fit. So I try and do it whenever I can.”

Jimmy Carr (1972) British comedian and humourist

Ed Caesar (February 21, 2005) "Think this is a laugh? You must be joking", The Independent.

World, Game

“It's true that all the men you knew were dealers
who said they were through with dealing
Every time you gave them shelter.
I know that kind of man
It's hard to hold the hand of anyone
who is reaching for the sky just to surrender.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

"The Stranger Song" (1966)
Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967)

Men, Time

“I've never set out to teach anyone anything. It's been more of an expression of my views and feelings than sitting down and deciding "What is today's message?" And I do think that, although I never, again, sat down consciously and thought about this, I do think judging, even for my own daughter, that children respond to that than to "thought for the day."”

Joanne K. Rowling (1965) British novelist, author of the Harry Potter series

Interview by Lizo Mzimba (February 2003) 
2000s

Children, Feeling, Thinking, Daughters

“I am looking forward very much to getting back to Cambridge, and being able to say what I think and not to mean what I say: two things which at home are impossible. Cambridge is one of the few places where one can talk unlimited nonsense and generalities without anyone pulling one up or confronting one with them when one says just the opposite the next day.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Letter to Alys Pearsall Smith (1893); published in The Selected Letters of Bertrand Russell, Volume 1: The Private Years (1884–1914), edited by Nicholas Griffin
1890s

Home, Thinking

“In Paris one is too preoccupied by what one sees and what one hears, however strong one is; what I am doing here has, I think, the merit of not resembling anyone, because it is simply the expression of what I myself have experienced.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

in a letter to Frédéric Bazille from Etretat, December 1868; as cited in: Mary Tompkins Lewis (2007) Critical Readings in Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. p. 83
1850 - 1870

Thinking, Strong

Quotes about anyone page 3

Quotes about anyone
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