Quotes about boss (209 quotes, page 2) | Quotes of famous people

“In baseball, the true class enemy is not the boss, but the fan.”

Murray Kempton (1917–1997) American journalist

“My boss told me to get my butt in gear. I told him I was shiftless.”

Jay London (1966) American comedian

One-liners

“I make moves and boss all across the world”

Big L (rapper) (1974–1999) American rapper

World

“I was workin' part-time in a 5-and-dime.
My boss was Mr. McGee, huh.
He told me several… times
That he didn't like my kind cuz I was a bit 2 leisurely.
It seems that I was busy doin' somethin' close 2 nothin',
But different than the day before
That's when I saw her, ooh, I saw her,
She walked in through the out door …out door.She wore a raspberry beret
The kind U find in a second hand store
Raspberry beret
And if it was warm she wouldn't wear much more
Raspberry beret
I think I love her.”

Prince (1958–2016) American pop, songwriter, musician and actor

Raspberry Beret
Song lyrics, Around the World in a Day (1985)

Love , Business , Thinking , Time

“If a female employee is offended, a boss would like her to tell him, not sue him.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part III: Government as substitute husband, p. 294.

“It is a new form of leadership of states, never encountered yet. I don't know what designation it will be given, but it is a new form. I think that it is based on this state of mind, this state of high national consciousness which, sooner or later, spreads to the periphery of the national organism. It is a state of inner light. What previously slept in the souls of the people, as racial instinct, is in these moments reflected in their consciousness, creating a state of unanimous illumination, as found only in great religious experiences. This state could be rightly called a state of national oecumenicity. A people as a whole reach self-consciousness, consciousness of its meaning and its destiny in the world. In history, we have met in peoples nothing else than sparks, whereas, from this point of view, we have today permanent national phenomena. In this case, the leader is no longer a 'boss' who 'does what he wants', who rules according to 'his own good pleasure': he is the expression of this invisible state of mind, the symbol of this state of consciousness. He does not do what he wants, he does what he has to do. And he is guided, not by individual interests, nor by collective ones, but instead by the interests of the eternal nation, to the consciousness of which the people have attained. In the framework of these interests and only in their framework, personal interests as well as collective ones find the highest degree of normal satisfaction.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) Romanian politician

On the form of government he plans on creating.
For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Politics

People , Pleasure , World , Soul

“I'm not the last of the old bosses. I'm the first of the new leaders.”

Richard J. Daley (1902–1976) American politician

[Cohen, Adam, Elizabeth Taylor, American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley - His Battle for Chicago and the Nation, Back Bay Books, 2001, ISBN 0-3168-3489-0]

“The typical organization is hierarchical, with workers answering to a manager, and that manager answering to a still-higher manager, and so on. The value of such hierarchies is obvious-it vastly simplifies communication among the employees. New employees need only one connection, to their boss, to get started. That's much simpler than trying to have everyone talk to everyone.”

Clay Shirky (1964) American technology writer

Source: Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations (2008), p. 29

Communication

“As head of the Catholic church, Pope Benedict is the boss of every Catholic priest in the world, he's effectively king of the pedos.”

Jimmy Carr (1972) British comedian and humourist

Jimmy Carr: Being Funny (2011)

World

“Someone tapped him on the shoulder. he whirled around- and stared into the angry face of Milo Axelrod, his boss. "I told you to stay and mind the shop, dammit!" the druggist roared. "You're fired!" Bartlett snapped his fingers under the older man's nose. "And this here is how much I care," he said. "You can't fire me, on account of I damn well quit. They haven't called up my regiment yet, but I'm joining the Army now, is what I'm doing. Go peddle your pills- us real men will save the country for you. A couple of months from now, after we've licked the Yankees, you can tell me you're sorry."”

Harry Turtledove book The Great War: American Front

Source: The Great War: American Front (1998), p. 33

Men , Country

“I had to perform in Béziers, In France, in a huge arena where they normally hold bullfights. There where a bunch of important people there, I was not that famous yet, so alot was riding on this performance, but the vibe was amazing. So a few songs into the set I yelled very enthusiastically ‘J’adore Béziers” Unfortunatly my French speech is not perfect so it sounded as J'adore baiser! The public did not respond, so I thought, with the wind they probably did not understand it clearly, so alot louder I yelled J'ADORE BAISER!!!! And then a deadly silence. Afterwords someone asked me, ‘doe joe know vot you ave just told all of France?’ Sure, I told’em I love’em…. euh not really…man I was dying! But the boss from the French record label said, don’t worry about it, they thought u where amazing, we will sell alot of records here.”

Anastacia (1968) American singer-songwriter

Het stomende dubbelinterview: Natalia en Anastacia http://www.humo.be/humo-archief/29756/het-stomende-dubbelinterview-natalia-en-anastacia, Humo, September 27, 2010.
General Quotes

People , Understanding , Silence , Perfection

“Dayan's correct assumption was that the boss in Washington might object formally, but with a wink, and would continue to provide the decisive military, economic and diplomatic support for the criminal endeavors. The criminality has been underscored by repeated Security Council resolutions, more recently by the International Court of Justice, with the basic agreement of U. S. Justice Thomas Buergenthal in a separate declaration. Israel's actions also violate U. N. Security Council resolutions concerning Jerusalem. But everything is fine as long as Washington winks.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Article The Charade of Israeli-Palestinian Talks for Truthout newsletter, December 6, 2010 http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20101206.htm.
Quotes 2010s, 2010

Justice , Support , Decision

“I think {the designated driver program} is a great idea, because anything is safer than the way we used to do it: "Hey dude, get up! Give us a ride home, man! C'mon, whaddaya say? We'll buy ya a beer!"…The only problem with the designated driver program {is} it's not the world's most desirable job…But if you ever get talked into doing it, have fun with the group. Like at the end of the night, drop them off at the wrong damn house, preferably in their boss's front yard or something.”

Jeff Foxworthy (1958) American stand-up comedian

Games Rednecks Play (1995)

World , Way , Home , Idea

“Opening the fridge door, I found a rat eating the cheese. My dealings with rodents, particularly those tagged verminous, have been few, but generally the pattern has been one of man, the boss, the caretaker of creation, the namer, appearing and the lower orders hitting the road.”

Tibor Fischer book The Thought Gang

Page 63.
The Thought Gang (1994)

Appearance

“The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs has a difficult job living with his civilian bosses, the Secretary of Defense and the President, striving to convince them in terms they can understand matters that he views as military necessity, and, in General Wheeler's case, within the concept of one thing at a time. One thing at a time was all he could hope to accomplish. Since Vietnam was the visible part of the iceberg, the part he knew was perturbing his civilian bosses, Vietnam rather than the strategic reserve was the context in which to present the request for additional troops. If he could gain authority to raise the troops, exactly what was to be done with them could be decided once the troops were actually available.”

William Westmoreland book A Soldier Reports

Source: A Soldier Reports (1976), p. 357.

Hope , Understanding , Time , Parting

“A Christian will consider a tyrannical person bossing a city brutally a lesser evil than a whole city lynching one man. In the first case there is one sinner and thousands of sufferers, in the latter case thousands of sinners and one sufferer. The materialist will look at the problem the other way round. He is never interested in sin, but as a humanitarian only in suffering. His final logical conclusion is euthanasia and the sacrifice of individuals to the whim of the masses.”

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn (1909–1999) Austrian noble and political theorist

Pg 104n
The Menace of the Herd (1943)

Way , Problem , Suffering , Evil

“It’s tradition. I remove a head, I bring it backstage, I place it on Mr. Fertitta and Mr. White’s desk. "Here you go boss. Another one done."”

Conor McGregor (1988) Irish mixed martial artist and boxer

And then we discuss big business.
UFC Fight Night: Boston post-event press conference https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlE8zHZBepg (January 2015) Ultimate Fighting Championship, Zuffa, LLC
2010s, 2015

Business

“Put an Englishman into the garden of Eden, and he would find fault with the whole blasted concern; put a Yankee in, and he would see where he could alter it to advantage; put an Irishman in, and he would want to boss the thing; put a Dutchman in, and he would proceed to plant it.”

Josh Billings (1818–1885) American humorist

Affurisms. From Josh Billings: His Sayings (1865)

“Well, I wanna be your lover, baby, I don't wanna be your boss.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Highway 61 Revisited (1965), It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry

Lovers , Baby

“The subordinate's job is not to reform or reeducate the boss, not to make him conform to what the business schools or the management book say bosses should be like. It is to enable a particular boss to perform as a unique individual.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Source: 1990s and later, Managing for the Future: The 1990's and Beyond (1992), p. 138

Books , School , Business

“It’s early in the process for me, but my infatuation with fame is waning, my need for external approval and the control of other people’s opinions is expiring. Practically I’ve decided that profits from this book will go towards creating a place where recovering addicts like me can run a business based on the ideas in this book. A café and production company run to create community, not money, democratically managed by the workforce. No bosses. No profit. No bullshit. Selling food sourced ethically, grown locally, and served by people who have had a Revolution in their own lives and are now able to learn and give back. Supporting modest creative projects, building a community of people who want to be part of something other than the toxic hegemony. We will start small but we will grow quickly because we have a limitless resource and we are providing an alternative to a dying system. There are no limits to what we can achieve if we behave collectively, responsibly, and humanely.”

Russell Brand book Revolution

Revolution (2014)

Money , People , Books , Food

“There was always some kind of strain, but it was workable. The bigger you get, the more of a strain it is, because in your everyday life, you're less used to compromising. As you get bigger, you have your own way. But in a partnership you always have to compromise. … When you get into a partnership, you're not the boss. There's no boss. That makes it hard.”

Paul Simon (1941) American musician, songwriter and producer

Interview with Jon Landau for Rolling Stone (1972); republished in The Rolling Stone Interviews: 1967-1980 (1989) edited by Peter Herbst, p. 211

Life , Way , Partnership

“With what moral authority can they speak of human rights — the rulers of a nation in which the millionaire and beggar coexist; the Indian is exterminated; the black man is discriminated against; the woman is prostituted; and the great masses of Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, and Latin Americans are scorned, exploited, and humiliated? How can they do this — the bosses of an empire where the mafia, gambling, and child prostitution are imposed; where the CIA organizes plans of global subversion and espionage, and the Pentagon creates neutron bombs capable of preserving material assets and wiping out human beings; an empire that supports reaction and counter-revolution all over the world; that protects and promotes the exploitation by monopolies of the wealth and the human resources of whole continents, unequal exchange, a protectionist policy, an incredible waste of natural resources, and a system of hunger for the world?”

Fidel Castro (1926–2016) former First Secretary of the Communist Party and President of Cuba

Speech on the 25th anniversary of the Moncada Barracks attack (26 July 1978) http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/discursos/1978/esp/f260778e.html

Hunger , World , Support , Nature

“"Emile will serve you well. He's an animal, but animals come in handy if they're trained right." "Right," Bunting said, but thinking, When you're gone, Archie, I'll be boss and I'll chose my own right arms. "Bunting," Archie said, looking up again, "I'll be telling Emile about it. Emile Janza will be looking forward to his job as your assistant. And Emile doesn't like to be disappointed. He's very unpredictable and gets very physical when he's disappointed. Never disappoint Emile Janza, Bunting."”

Robert Cormier book Beyond the Chocolate War

Source: Beyond the Chocolate War (1985), p. 203

Disappointment , Thinking , Animals , Training

“You know, if you hurt people enough, eventually they’ll all call you whatever you want. Maker. King. Captain. Boss. Master. Holy One. Pick your title, you can beat people into calling you that. But you don’t change yourself a bit. All you do is change the meanings of those words, so they all mean the same thing: Bully.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Alvin Journeyman (1995), Chapter 2.

People , Change , Hurt

“I looked at my wife and said, "You know what? If these people put their own dollar-an-hour raise above the integrity of our nation, I don't wanna be their boss anymore."”

Jesse Ventura (1951) American politician and former professional wrestler

On his reaction to Minnesota state workers going on strike.
Harvard interview (February 2004)

People

“You need one of those slave-driving old studio bosses if you ask me, not a sensitive graduate who went into movies because he liked the clouds in Antonioni and then turned himself into a nouvelle vague Deutscher all hot for Truthspiel.”

Julian Barnes book A History of the World in 10½ Chapters

Page 194.
See wikipedia on Michelangelo Antonioni.
A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters (1989)

“I was traveling in Greece as a teenager, and for those who haven't been to Greece, it's absolutely covered in olive groves — stunted, gnarly little bonsai-type trees. And I was driving on a moped and a huge black stallion had pulled away from its stake and was just going nuts in this tiny, tiny, hobbit-like forest. It was just such a powerful image, this enormous beast let loose and going wild in a fairy-tale wood of tiny trees… The song itself is really about going through the process of making the first album. It was a very strange experience and a very steep learning curve. For the previous 10 or 15 years, I'd been completely my own boss — when you play a gig, you just play your new song, the new song is always your favorite. And here I was having to make an album of stuff that's never gonna go away. I was being asked to make these huge decisions, so really the song is just about learning to listen to your guts again. There's actually very few times in our lives now when we have to do that.”

KT Tunstall (1975) Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist

On influences in writing her song "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree", in a Barnes & Noble Interview with David Sprague (February 2006).

Travel , Decision , Tree , Learning

“I want to tell you how I got to be a statistician. I was, of course, born in England and in 1939… when war broke out in September of that year, although I was close to getting a degree in Chemistry, I abandoned that and joined the Army. They put me in the Engineers (and when I see a bridge I still catch myself calculating where I would put the charges to blow it up).
Before I could actually do any of that I was moved to a highly secret experimental station in the south of England. At the time they were bombing London every night and our job was to help to find out what to do if, one night, they used poisonous gas.
Some of England's best scientists were there. There were a lot of experiments with small animals, I was a lab assistant making biochemical determinations, my boss was a professor of physiology dressed up as a colonel, and I was dressed up as a staff sergeant.
The results I was getting were very variable and I told my colonel that what we really needed was a statistician.
He said "we can't get one, what do you know about it?"”

George E. P. Box (1919–2013) British statistician

I said "Nothing, I once tried to read a book about it by someone called R. A. Fisher but I didn't understand it". He said "You've read the book so you better do it", so I said, "Yes sir"
An Accidental Statistician, 2010

War , Secret , Books , Understanding

“Class, conservatives insist, is not really about money or birth or even occupation. It is primarily a matter of authenticity, that most valuable cultural commodity. Class is about what one drives and where one shops and how one prays, and only secondarily about the work one does or the income one makes. What makes one a member of the noble proletariat is not work per se, but unpretentiousness, humility, and the rest of the qualities that our punditry claims to spy in the red states that voted for George W. Bush. The nation’s producers don’t care about unemployment or a dead-end life or a boss who makes five hundred times as much as they do. No. In red land both workers and their bosses are supposed to be united in disgust with those affected college boys at the next table, prattling on about French cheese and villas in Tuscany and the big ideas for running things that they read in books.This sounds like a complicated maneuver, but it should be quite familiar after all these years. We see it in its most ordinary, run-of-the-mill variety every time we hear a conservative pundit or politician deplore "class warfare"”

Thomas Frank book What's the Matter with Kansas?

meaning any talk about the failures of free-market capitalism — and then, seconds later, hear them rail against the "media elite" or the haughty, Volvo driving "eastern establishment."
Part II: The Fury Which Passeth All Understanding, Chapter Six: Persecuted, Powerless, and Blind (pp. 113-114).
What's the Matter with Kansas? (2004)

Life , Money , Boy , Idea

“Boss: You forgot to assign the result of your map!Hacker: Dang, I'm always forgetting my assignations…Boss: And what's that 'goto' doing there?!?Hacker: Er, I guess my finger slipped when I was typing 'getservbyport'…Boss: Ah well, accidents will happen. Maybe we should have picked APL.”

Larry Wall (1954) American computer programmer and author, creator of Perl

[199710311732.JAA19169@wall.org, 1997]
Usenet postings, 1997

Forgetting

“Parents might believe themselves to be the bosses, but in the end it was the kids who made the rules.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Travis Parker, Chapter 1, p. 16
2000s, The Choice (2007)

Parent

“A fifty-seven-year-old college professor expressed it this way: "Yes, there's a need for male lib and hardly anyone writes about it the way it really is, though a few make jokes. My gut reaction, which is what you asked for, is that men—the famous male chauvinist pigs who neglect their wives, underpay their women employees, and rule the world—are literally slaves. They're out there picking that cotton, sweating, swearing, taking lashes from the boss, working fifty hours a week to support themselves and the plantation, only then to come back to the house to do another twenty hours a week rinsing dishes, toting trash bags, writing checks, and acting as butlers at the parties. It's true of young husbands and middleaged husbands. Young bachelors may have a nice deal for a couple of years after graduating, but I've forgotten, and I'll never again be young! Old men. Some have it sweet, some have it sour."Man's role—how has it affected my life? At thirty-five, I chose to emphasize family togetherness and income and neglect my profession if necessary. At fifty-seven, I see no reward for time spent with and for the family, in terms of love or appreciation. I see a thousand punishments for neglecting my profession. I'm just tired and have come close to just walking away from it and starting over; just research, publish, teach, administer, play tennis, and travel. Why haven't I? Guilt. And love. And fear of loneliness. How should the man's role in my family change? I really don't know how it can, but I'd like a lot more time to do my thing."”

Herb Goldberg (1937–2019) American psychologist

In Harness: The Male Condition, pp. 6–7
The Hazards of Being Male (1976)

Love , Life , Women , Men

“I called the boss a ‘fucker’ one day – not to his face, but it got back to him – so that was the end.”

Philip Ó Ceallaigh (1968) Irish writer

On life, on his time spent as a waiter.
Notes from a library bar (2006)

“Interviewer: You and Australia have had quite a relationship over the years. This will be your first trip there in eight years.
Singh: There are lots of memories, and they are all quite fresh. Good and bad. I will start with the good. Winning the Perth Test was probably the key point of my Test career, even though I didn’t play that match. But in the context of the series, we fought really hard and won a match in which Australia were favourites. And of course winning the CB series by beating Australia was very satisfying. It is like winning a mini World Cup. The bad memories include the Sydney spat, of course. It should have been handled better. It should have been stopped. Whatever happened there didn’t help anyone, neither Australian cricket nor us. We (Andrew Symonds & I) should have just sat like two mature people and spoken about it and sorted it.
Interviewer: This realisation that you should stop rushing through things has come about recently?
Singh: It’s not that I have just started doing this now. I have been told by a lot of my senior bowlers, “Take your time. Don’t rush.” Maybe I was not getting the idea sometimes. That was missing in between. Sometimes I was heeding to that advice, sometimes I was not. Then you make mistakes. Then you come back to the same thing, “Ok, take your time, boss. Relax.” It’s been there, but lately it’s come to the fore more because I have become calmer.
Interviewer: When you see guys like Virender Sehwag and Zaheer Khan, who came into international cricket after you, retire, what kind of effect does it have on you?
Singh: That was up to them. They know what’s going on with their body and mind. They need to plan their lives. Their decision should not put anyone else under pressure. Till I’m playing with my full energy, I will continue to play. Aisa toh nahi ho sakta bhai ki ek ka raasta doosre ke liye theek hai. I am enjoying what I’m doing.”

Harbhajan Singh (1980) Indian cricketer

Interview with Indian Express http://indianexpress.com/article/sports/cricket/i-always-say-i-am-the-best-harbhajan-singh/, January 25, 2016.

People , World , Guy , Idea

“Normally, in February, in Boston and in most of the country, the weather is gray, rainy, gray, sleet, snow, gray; every day it just gets grayer and grayer and grayer! You wake up one day and you go 'I'm not coming into work today!' Your boss goes, 'Why not? You sick?' 'No! Its too gray!' Then you wake up and its the grayest day you've ever seen! And the next day it's even grayer! And that's usually Valentine's Day, and that's the day you look at your wrists and go, 'Hey, maybe I should slit 'em to see color!”

Lewis Black (1948) American stand-up comedian, author, playwright, social critic and actor

The White Album (2000)

Color , Weather , Country

“An Apple employee copied Sony's design, circulated it to his bosses, and testified to these facts in court. From now on, when anyone heaps phrase on Apple's design excellence and superlative innovation, just point and laugh. Some of us have been saying for years that what Apple is really good at is ripping off other peoples' ideas and stealing the credit for them with slick marketing. This, right here, is the proof.”

Eric S. Raymond (1957) American computer programmer, author, and advocate for the open source movement

The Smartphone Wars: The iPhone Design Was Inspired by Sony http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4479 in Armed and Dangerous (20 July 2012)

People , Idea

“Such terms as tycoon, media baron, captain of industry, industrial magnate, financial speculator, or boss were dropped in favour of entrepreneur, now seen as the benign improver of society and the kind of person we could all aspire to being.”

Marnie Holborow Irish academic

Source: Language and Neoliberalism (2015), p. 74

Personality

“One way in which feminists try to remedy the disparity is to legally mandate paid leave for female employees who give birth, even if a company is struggling to stay afloat. Such laws provide powerful incentives for bosses-male or female-not to hire women to begin with. Of course, it's easy to support such legislation until you end up getting laid off because your boss was losing too much money by paying absent employees.”

Stephen Miller (1985) political advisor for policy

Opinion column entitled Sorry feminists http://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2005/11/sorry-feminists (22 November 2005)
2000s

Women , Money , Law , Way

“President Reagan brought us to the ultimate: America As Total Television. During his governance the printed word simply ceased to matter. White House dynamos had once telephoned newspapers to complain about unfair reporting. Not anymore. Now they telephoned network bosses. Even then it wasn't poor reporting they complained about, but poor pictures.
A network reporter who thought her report on shortcomings in Reaganland would anger the President's cadres was amazed when the man in charge of propaganda thanked her for doing them a good turn. But, she said, that was a tough piece of reporting.
Oh, the words may have been, said the gentleman, but on television words didn't matter. What mattered were pictures. And the pictures had been wonderful.”

Russell Baker (1925–2019) writer and satirst from the United States

"'Star Wars' Mania" (p.346)
There's a Country in My Cellar (1990)

Housing , Anger

“Never underrate the boss! The boss may look illiterate. He may look stupid. But there is no risk at all in overrating a boss. If you underrate him he will bitterly resent it or impute to you the deficiency in brains and knowledge you imputed to him.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Source: 1990s and later, Managing for the Future: The 1990's and Beyond (1992), p. 140

Stupidity , Knowledge

“Island girl,
What you wanting with the white man's world?
Island girl,
Black boy want you in his island world.
He want to take you from the racket boss,
He want to save you but the cause is lost.”

Elton John (1947) English rock singer-songwriter, composer and pianist

Island Girl
Song lyrics, Rock of the Westies (1975)

World , Girl , Boy

“The Boss: You are not mechanics, you are warriors. You have been trained, not to think, but to do.”

H. G. Wells book The Shape of Things to Come

Things to Come (1936)

Thinking , Training

“The shift to the pre‐job pattern of self‐employment in the informal sector promises to eliminate this pathological culture in which one secures his livelihood by winning the approval of an authority figure. In my opinion, therefore, we should take advantage of the opportunity to eliminate this pattern of livelihood, instead of—as Ford proposes—replacing the boss with a bureaucrat as the authority figure on whose whims our livelihood depends. The sooner we destroy the idea of the “job” as a primary source of livelihood, and replace the idea of work as something we’re given with the idea of work as something we do, the better. And then we should sow the ground with salt.”

Kevin Carson (1963) American academic

Homebrew Industrial Revolution (2010), Chapter 3
Homebrew Industrial Revolution (2010)

Idea , Dependency

“Dayton shook the leadership elite of post-Cold War Europe. The Europeans were grateful to the United States for the leading the effort that finally ended the war in Bosnia, but some European officials were embarassed that American involvement had been necessary. Jacque Poos's 1991 assertion that Europe's "hour had dawned" lay in history's dustbin, alongside James Baker's view that we had no dog in that fight. "One cannot call it an American peace", French Foreign Minister de Charette told the press, "even if President Clinton and the Americans have tried to pull the blanket over to their side. The fact is that the Americans looked at this affair in ex-Yugoslavia from a great distance for nearly four years and basically blocked the progression of things." But de Charette also acknowledged that "Europe as such was not present, and this, it is true, was a failure of the European Union." Prime Minister Alain Juppé, after praising the Dayton agreement, could not resist adding, "Of course, it resembles like a twin the European plan we presented eighteen months ago" - when he was Foreign Minister. Agence France-Presse reported that many European diplomats were "left smarting" at Dayton. In an article clearly inspired by someone at the French Foreign Ministry, Le Figaro said that "Richard Holbrooke, the American mediator, did not leave his European collegues with good memories from the air base at Dayton." They quoted an unnamed Franch diplomat as saying, "He flatters, he lies, he humiliates: he is a sort of brutal and schizophrenic Mazarin." President Chirac's national security assistant, Jean-David Levitte, called to apologize for this comment, saying it did not represent the views of his boss. I replied that such minidramas were inevitable given the pressures and frustrations we faced at Dayton and were inconsequential considering that the war was over.”

Richard Holbrooke (1941–2010) American diplomat

Source: 1990s, To End a War (1998), p. 318

War , Peace , Dogs , Quotes

“He gets up each morning and he goes downtown
Where everyone's his boss,
And he's lost in an angry land.
He's a little man.
But then he comes uptown
Each evening to my tenement.
Uptown where folks don't have to pay much rent.
And when he's there with me.
He can see that he's everything.
The man is tall, he don't crawl. He's a king.”

Carole King (1942) Nasa

Don't Say Nothin' Bad (About My Baby) (1963), co-written with Gerry Goffin, recorded by The Cookies
Song lyrics, Singles

“I was the boss of ambassadors in 270 countries.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

"Benghazi chair struggles to explain gains from marathon session" http://www.cbsnews.com/news/benghazi-hearing-hillary-clinton-chairman-struggles-to-explain-gains-from-session/, CBS News (23 October 2015)
Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016)

Country

“Now, if your boss is a sadist, then you have a big problem. In that case, fire your boss and get a new job.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Trump: How to Get Rich (2004)
2000s

Problem

“Bosses: You make your living going to meetings. Hence any meeting that does not bubble and incite enthusiasm is a forever-lost opportunity.”

Tom Peters (1942) American writer on business management practices

Tom Peters on Twitter, 2012.06.03.

“The only reason that a rabble of feminists and queers and Jews and Blacks and mestizos and liberals and Clinton supporters are running America into the ground today is that decent people are sitting on their hands. If the decent people in America would get off their hands and accept personal responsibility for what is being done to their world, and if they would make a commitment and begin working together, we could sweep the whole Clinton coalition into the dustbin of history. It doesn't matter that the Clinton rabble outnumber us. We will whip them in a minute. We will have the media bosses jumping into the ocean all along the East Coast and swimming toward Israel as fast as they can go. But first we must be willing to accept personal responsibility. And so my message today to every decent person who is listening is this: Don't be a shirker. Don't try to be a smart guy by continuing to cheer from the sidelines but refusing to join the team and get out on the field. Stand up and become a participant in life. Make of your life a model that people will remember and talk about long after you're gone.”

William Luther Pierce (1933–2002) American white nationalist

Thoughts on Accepting Responsibility, 1999
1990s, 1990
Source: [Pierce, 1976-2002, 672]

Life , People , World , Guy

“Boobs are the center of power. Boobs can make a 6-month old baby and a 65 year old man both act the same way. And I'm a big fan. Oh, man, I love 'em! And I ain't picky neither. I hate when I hear guys go "I don't like little boobs." I don't care! Big boobs, little boobs, saggy boobs, perky boobs. You could have boobs that look like nanners, I don't give a damn! They're the perfect toy! You squish them, mush them, POOF! They come right back out! You can't even break 'em! Oh, they're amazing. Boobs can make a long trip seem short, make a bad day seem great. [Points to member of the audience] Bud, let's say you had a bad day at work. Boss been chewing you out all day long. Little girl sitting next to you shows you her boobs, you're like, "This day was GREAT!"”

Bill Engvall (1957) American comedian and actor

15° Off Cool (2007)

Love , Hate , Way , Guy

“Bookstore boss: [to Mo] The self-service kiosks have enabled us to cut down on staff, but some customers still feel the need to speak to an actual human. That's where you come in.
Customer: Excuse me, do you carry Jewish New Year cards?
Boss: I'm sorry, our New Years cards don't come in till November. But we'll be getting Jewish Christmas cards then, too!”

Alison Bechdel book Dykes to Watch Out For

#425, "Rites of Fall" (2003), collected in Invasion of the DTWOF (2005).
Dykes to Watch Out For

Feeling , Christmas

“If the CIA is the emperor, you're asking us to say the emperor has clothes when the emperor's bosses say that the emperor doesn't. I mean, how can you ask the court to say that at this point?”

Merrick Garland (1952) American judge

[2012, ACLU v. CIA, Merrick Garland, Oral arguments, United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit]; quote then excerpted in:
[Mike Scarcella, http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2013/03/dc-circuit-revives-public-records-suit-over-drone-documents.html, March 18, 2016, D.C. Circuit Revives Public Records Suit Over Drone Documents, March 15, 2013, The BLT]; quote then cited from this source subsequently in:
[March 18, 2016, The Quotable Merrick Garland: A Collection of Writings and Remarks, http://www.nationallawjournal.com/home/id=1202752327128/The-Quotable-Merrick-Garland-A-Collection-of-Writings-and-Remarks, Zoe Tillman, The National Law Journal, March 16, 2016, 0162-7325]
Court opinions and media comments

Clothes

“You are an adult, and you can dress up whenever you want to. You don't need permission anymore! If you wake up next Tuesday, and you feel like being Batman, go for it! And then you go to work, and your boss will look up and go "who are you," and you can say…"I am Batman. That's who I am, who are you?"”

Lewis Black (1948) American stand-up comedian, author, playwright, social critic and actor

The Carnegie Hall Performance (2006)

Feeling

“I believe that the way in which we should truly live is we should think about what we're going to do, and then not do it. Your boss comes in on Monday and goes, "Hey! You're my go-to guy — I need a report by Friday." You go, "I'll get right on it, chief!" And then you head back to your desk and you put your feet up and you spend the week thinking about it. And then he comes in on Friday and goes, "Where's my report?" And you say, with a big grin on your face, "I didn't do it!" And he goes, "Why not?"”

Lewis Black (1948) American stand-up comedian, author, playwright, social critic and actor

and then you say, "Because I didn't want to disappoint you!"
Anticipation (2008)

Disappointment , Way , Guy , Thinking

“The Boss: The State’s your mother, your father, the totality of your interests. No discipline can be too severe for the man that denies that by word or deed.”

H. G. Wells book The Shape of Things to Come

Things to Come (1936)

“To be effective in leading his own work group, a superior must be able to influence his own boss, that is he needs to be skilled both as a superior and as a subordinate.”

Rensis Likert (1903–1981) American statistician

Source: New patterns of management, (1961), p. 144

““Am I drunk?" he asked Crewcut. "You're not drunk, Boss," Crewcut replied. "How could a superior individual like you be drunk? People around here who get drunk are the dregs of society, illiterates, uncouth people. Highbrow folks, those of the 'spring snow,' cannot get drunk. You're a highbrow, therefore you cannot be drunk.””

Mo Yan book The Republic of Wine

Source: The Republic of Wine (1992), Chapter I, Section 1

People , Spring

“Particularism means that irrelevant criteria like e. g. only relatives of the boss have a chance at top positions, in contrast to universalistic criteria like e. g. competences is all that counts, are employed in choosing employees… The particularistic criteria are likely to be negatively related to performance.”

Charles Perrow (1925–2019) American sociologist

Source: 1970s, Complex organizations, 1972, p. 8-10

Chance

“If you still don't like it, that's OK: that's why I'm boss. I simply know better than you do.”

Linus Torvalds (1969) Finnish-American software engineer and hacker

Post to comp.os.linux.advocacy newsgroup, 1996-07-22, Torvalds, Linus, 2006-08-28 http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=4sv02t%24j8g%40linux.cs.Helsinki.FI,
1990s, 1995-99

“I could see the room dividing as I spoke. I could hear the laughter of some and louder still silence of others. I realised that for some people this was regarded as an event with import. The magazine, the sponsors and some of those in attendance saw it as a kind of ceremony that warranted respect. In effect, it is a corporate ritual, an alliance between a media organisation, GQ, and a commercial entity, Hugo Boss. What dawned on me as the night went on is that even in apparently frivolous conditions the establishment asserts control, and won't tolerate having that assertion challenged, even flippantly, by that most beautifully adept tool: comedy.”

Russell Brand (1975) British comedian, actor, and author

Russell Brand - The Guardian (2013)

People , Laughter , Silence , Night

“dear boss i relay this information
without any fear that humanity
will take warning and reform”

Don Marquis (1878–1937) American writer

archy and mehitabel (1927), what the ants are saying

Fear

“In the desperate situation of Britain today, our party needs the support of all who value the traditional ideals of Toryism: compassion, and concern for the individual and his freedom; opposition to excessive State power; the right of the enterprising, the hard-working and the thrifty to succeed and to reap the rewards of success and pass some of them on to their children; encouragement of that infinite diversity of choice that is an essential of freedom; the defence of widely-distributed private property against the Socialist State; the right of a man to work without oppression by either employer or trade union boss. There is a widespread feeling in the country that the Conservative party has not defended these ideals explicitly and toughly enough, so that Britain is set on a course towards inevitable Socialist mediocrity. That course must not only be halted, it must be reversed.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech in Finchley (31 January 1975) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/102605
Shadow Secretary for Environment

Children , Feeling , Support , Freedom

“Oh, yes, that is a good way to do up the so-called bosses, but have you ever thought what would become of the country if the bosses were put out of business, and their places were taken by a lot of cart-tail orators and college graduates? It would mean chaos. p. 81”

George Washington Plunkitt (1842–1924) New York State Senator

Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, Chapter 20, Bosses Preserve the Nation

Way , Business , Country

““She probably used proxies and a cleaner-upper online too, because there was bugger-all of interest in her cache.”
“You have no idea what you’re saying, do you, boss?”
“None at all. I had the techies write it all out phonetically for me.””

China Miéville book The City & the City

Source: The City & the City (2009), Chapter 13 (p. 139)

Idea

“When I first heard Elvis's voice I just knew that I wasn't going to work for anybody and nobody was going to be my boss. He is the deity supreme of rock and roll religion as it exists in today's form. Hearing him for the first time was like busting out of jail. I think for a long time that freedom to me was Elvis singing 'Blue Moon of Kentucky.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

I thank God for Elvis.
US magazine (24 August 1987); on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of Elvis Presley's death, as reported in Bob Dylan: Performing Artist 1986–1990 and Beyond, Mind out of Time (2009)

God , Religion , Thinking , Freedom

“When you run an organization like the Teamsters one man has to be the boss and run things.”

Jimmy Hoffa (1913–1982) American labor leader

Source: Hoffa The Real Story (1975), Chapter 1, I'll Be Back, p. 22-23

“Democracy prevents the politician's fulfillment of his obligations to the nation. Even the most well-meaning politician becomes, in a democracy, the slave of his supporters, because either he satisfies their personal interests or they destroy his organization. The politician lives under the tyranny and permanent threat of the electoral bosses. He is placed in a position in which he must choose between the termination of his lifetime work and the satisfaction of the demands of party members. And the politician, given such a choice, opts for the latter. He does so not out of his own pocket, but out of that of the country. He creates jobs, sets up missions, commissions, sinecures--all rostered in the nation's budget--which put increasingly heavy pressures on a tired people.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) Romanian politician

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Politics

People , Democracy , Support , Personality

“If we’re honest, most of us would accept that a bad boss is a little bit like a bad father or a bad husband … you find that he tends to do more good than harm. He might be a bad boss but at least he’s employing someone while he is in fact a boss.”

Tony Abbott (1957) Australian politician

Quoted in "Tony Abbott under fire" http://www.abc.net.au/am/stories/s596135.htm on abc.net.au, July 22, 2002.
2002

“[T]here are really seven different [kinds of] sexual interactions occurring in the workplace… Sexual blackmail. A boss threatens to fire an employee unless she or he is sexual… Sexual bribery. An executive promises a promotion in exchange for sex. This can be explicit or implicit… Workplace prostitution. An employee is sexual in exchange for a promotion; a salesperson is sexual to win a sale. The sex can be given or just promised… Workplace incest. Consensual sex among employees. The workplace, like the family, has lines of authority which sexual bonding tends to blur… Sexual harassment. Repeated sexual advances at work after an employee has said ‘no’… Workplace flirtation. Suggestive dress, flirtations eye contact, a combination of touching and eye signals… Workplace porn. Pinups, lewd jokes, and sexual innuendos made in groups…”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part III: Government as substitute husband, p. 297-9.

Family , Sex

“Jim Dilley, the father of the Laguna Greenbelt, used to take roses to the secretaries of the county Board of Supervisors when he'd go to do battle over open space with the secretaries' bosses. Jim Dilley was a nice man, kind and gentle. He smoked a pipe. His eyes twinkled as though he knew a joke the rest of us didn't. But he's dead, and the Board is still alive, and that is a joke on us of monstrous proportions. I'm not nice, kind or gentle. The Board keeps rubber-stamping building permits, and this is my goodbye to these shores. After 36 years, my wife and I will soon leave Orange County for Costa Rica, to join the Peace Corps, and that, too, is a joke. We traipse off to bring peace to Costa Rica, which hasn't had an army since 1948.”

Arnold Hano (1922) American writer

From "OC Forum: O.C. Can You Say?" https://books.google.com/books?id=FhEEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA8 in Orange Coast Magazine (July 1991), p. 8
Other Topics

Peace , Dead

“I also say to all of you listening in the Chamber and outside that I feel very proud to be slipping the captain’s armband onto my shirt sleeve again today. That is why, in all humility, I ask for your assistance as we seek to do our duty here. I say to this Assembly and to the people that I am not the boss – they, the people, are the boss.”

Rhodri Morgan (1939–2017) British politician

Record of Proceedings http://www.assemblywales.org/bus-home/bus-chamber/bus-chamber-third-assembly-rop.htm?act=dis&id=51748&ds=2007/5, National Assembly for Wales, 25 May 2007.
Speech after his re-election as First Minister in May 2007.

People , Feeling