Quotes about damn (979 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“Why not just tell people I'm an alien from Mars. Tell them I eat live chickens and do a voodoo dance at midnight. They'll believe anything you say, because you're a reporter. But if I, Michael Jackson, were to say, "I'm an alien from Mars and I eat live chickens and do a voodoo dance at midnight," people would say, "Oh, man, that Michael Jackson is nuts. He's cracked up. You can't believe a damn word that comes out of his mouth."”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

http://rocknrollworldmagazine.com/2015/08/82915-rock-history/

People , Dance

This quote waiting for review.

“Proud to be a "damn South American" and not a "suck-up" to the United States.”

José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor

Source: Radiorama de Occidente. 1480 AM Rock&Pop.

“Jay's favorite line: "Dog, in due time"
Now he look at me, like "Damn, dog, you where I am"
A hip hop legend.
I think I died in an accident, cause this must be heaven.”

Kanye West (1977) American rapper, singer and songwriter

Touch the Sky
Lyrics, Late Registration (2005)

Dogs , Thinking , Time

“When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'.”

Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American comedian

“My main interest right now is to expose the Jews. This is a lot bigger than me. They're not just persecuting me. This is not just my struggle, I'm not just doing this for myself… This is life and death for the world. These God-damn Jews have to be stopped. They're a menace to the whole world.”

Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) American chess prodigy, chess player, and chess writer

Radio Interview, March 10 1999 http://www.geocities.jp/bobbby_b/mp3/F_05_4.MP3
1990s

Life , Death , God , World

“99% of my life I was lied to. I just found out my mom does more dope than I do(Damn!). I told her I'd grow up to be a famous rapper, make a record about doing drugs and name it after her”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

-Oh, thank you!
"My Name Is" (Track 2).
1990s, The Slim Shady LP (1999)

Life , Moms

“What is life? Life is like a big obstacle, put in front of your optical to slow you down, and every time you think you gotten past it, it's gonna come back around and tackle you to the damn ground. What are friends? Friends are people that you think are your friends, but they're really your enemies with secret identities and disguises to hide their true colors, so just when you're close enough to be brothers, they wanna come back and cut your throat when you ain't looking. What is money? Money is what makes a man act funny. Money is the root of all evil. Money'll make them same friends come back around swearing that they was always down. What is life? I'm tired of life!”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

"'If I Had" (Track 6).
1990s, The Slim Shady LP (1999)

Life , Money , People , Secret

“I can better understand the inert blindness & defiant ignorance of the reactionaries from having been one of them. I know how smugly ignorant I was—wrapped up in the arts, the natural (not social) sciences, the externals of history & antiquarianism, the abstract academic phases of philosophy, & so on—all the one-sided standard lore to which, according to the traditions of the dying order, a liberal education was limited. God! the things that were left out—the inside facts of history, the rational interpretation of periodic social crises, the foundations of economics & sociology, the actual state of the world today … & above all, the habit of applying disinterested reason to problems hitherto approached only with traditional genuflections, flag-waving, & callous shoulder-shrugs! All this comes up with humiliating force through an incident of a few days ago—when young Conover, having established contact with Henneberger, the ex-owner of WT, obtained from the latter a long epistle which I wrote Edwin Baird on Feby. 3, 1924, in response to a request for biographical & personal data. Little Willis asked permission to publish the text in his combined SFC-Fantasy, & I began looking the thing over to see what it was like—for I had not the least recollection of ever having penned it. Well …. I managed to get through, after about 10 closely typed pages of egotistical reminiscences & showing-off & expressions of opinion about mankind & the universe. I did not faint—but I looked around for a 1924 photograph of myself to burn, spit on, or stick pins in! Holy Hades—was I that much of a dub at 33 … only 13 years ago? There was no getting out of it—I really had thrown all that haughty, complacent, snobbish, self-centred, intolerant bull, & at a mature age when anybody but a perfect damned fool would have known better! That earlier illness had kept me in seclusion, limited my knowledge of the world, & given me something of the fatuous effusiveness of a belated adolescent when I finally was able to get around more in 1920, is hardly much of an excuse. Well—there was nothing to be done … except to rush a note back to Conover & tell him I'd dismember him & run the fragments through a sausage-grinder if he ever thought of printing such a thing! The only consolation lay in the reflection that I had matured a bit since '24. It's hard to have done all one's growing up since 33—but that's a damn sight better than not growing up at all.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to Catherine L. Moore (7 February 1937), in Selected Letters V, 1934-1937 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, pp. 407-408
Non-Fiction, Letters

God , Age , World , Education

“That guy right there is the best damn roller skater ever. Maybe even in the whole town.”

Chris Pontius (1974) American actor

[Roller jump- Jackass Episodes]

Guy

“There is no fountain for youth. What you put in your body is what you get out of it. You would not feed your dog a coffee and doughnut for breakfast followed by a cigarette you will kill the damn dog.”

Jack LaLanne (1914–2011) American exercise instructor

In "Live Young Forever: 12 Steps to Optimum Health, Fitness and Longevity", p. 10

Youth , Dogs , Coffee

“The music we listen to may not define who we are. But it’s a damn good start.”

Jodi Picoult book Sing You Home

Source: Sing You Home

Music

“There's a whole industry of conservatives saying, "Ah, it's those damn liberals," and a whole group of liberals saying, "It's all those damn conservatives"”

Peter Jennings (1938–2005) News anchor

Interview for KETV NewsWatch 7 as quoted at The Omaha Channel http://www.theomahachannel.com/politics/3833789/detail.html (19 October 2004)
Context: There's a whole industry of conservatives saying, "Ah, it's those damn liberals," and a whole group of liberals saying, "It's all those damn conservatives"... If you tailor your news viewing, as some people are now doing, so that you only get one point of view, well of course you're going to think somebody else has got a different point of view, and it may be wrong.

“Smashing up McDonald's or Starbuck's is pointless. Not that I give a damn about McDonald's or Starbuck's. I don't care whether anyone smashes them up or not. But that is not a revolutionary activity. Even if every fast-food chain in the world were wiped out the techno-industrial system would suffer only minimal harm as a result, since it could easily survive without fast-food chains. When you attack McDonald's or Starbuck's, you are not hitting where it hurts.”

Theodore Kaczynski (1942) American domestic terrorist, mathematician and anarchist

"Technology Is The Target", point 2
Hit Where It Hurts (2002)

World , Food , Suffering , Hurt

“You have a head and a heart? Reveal only one of them, I say; If you reveal both at once, doubly they'll damn you, for both.”

Friedrich Hölderlin (1770–1843) German poet

Heart

“I have not lived as a woman. I have lived as a man. I've just done what I damn well wanted to, and I've made enough money to support myself, and ain't afraid of being alone.”

Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003) film, stage, and television actress

Money , Support

“I'm the best damn thing that your eyes have ever seen.”

Avril Lavigne (1984) Canadian singer-songwriter and actress

"The Best Damn Thing" on The Best Damn Thing (2007)

“The attractive woman is simply complicated, strictly intelligent and damn charming.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: La donna attraente è semplicemente complicata, rigorosamente intelligente e dannatamente affascinante.
Source: prevale.net

Intelligence

“My dear Pissarro, Forgive me for not answering your first letter earlier, but I 'm starting to work full steam ahead and have hardly any time. I received your second letter this morning and I see that you are going to great pains on my behalf and getting nowhere: I'm sorry to be giving you so much trouble; so drop the whole thing, and I'll ask Durand-Ruel if he could see to it for me, he might be able to get rid of these damn frames.
I see that you are definitely going to leave that delightful country for good. Where are you going to, Paris or Louveciennes? I hope you'll write and let me know…”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

in a letter from Zaandam, The Netherlands, to Camille Pissarro (still in England), 17 June 1871; Cited in: Marianne Alphant (1994), Claude Monet en Holland, p. 87
1870 - 1890

Pain , Hope , Forgiveness , Time

“Compound for sins they are inclin'd to,
By damning those they have no mind to”

Samuel Butler (poet) Hudibras

Canto I, line 189
Hudibras, Part I (1663–1664)
Context: For his Religion, it was fit
To match his learning and his wit;
'Twas Presbyterian true blue;
For he was of that stubborn crew
Of errant saints, whom all men grant
To be the true Church Militant;
Such as do build their faith upon
The holy text of pike and gun;
Decide all controversies by
Infallible artillery;
And prove their doctrine orthodox
By apostolic blows and knocks;
Call fire and sword and desolation,
A godly thorough reformation,
Which always must be carried on,
And still be doing, never done;
As if religion were intended
For nothing else but to be mended.
A sect, whose chief devotion lies
In odd perverse antipathies;
In falling out with that or this,
And finding somewhat still amiss;
More peevish, cross, and splenetick,
Than dog distract, or monkey sick.
That with more care keep holy-day
The wrong, than others the right way;
Compound for sins they are inclin'd to,
By damning those they have no mind to:
Still so perverse and opposite,
As if they worshipp'd God for spite.
The self-same thing they will abhor
One way, and long another for.
Free-will they one way disavow,
Another, nothing else allow:
All piety consists therein
In them, in other men all sin...

“Precious Child… nothing matters but the moment. There might be no tomorrow and even if there is, nobody gives a damn.”

Judy Blume Summer Sisters

Source: Summer Sisters

“Moreover, I have heard that those who are fond of praising men to their faces are also fond of damning them behind their backs.”

Zhuangzi (-369–-286 BC) classic Chinese philosopher

Source: The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu

Men

“No chaos, damn it.”

Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) American artist

“The lie was dead
And damned, and truth stood up instead.”

Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era

Bells and Pomegranates No. III: Dramatic Lyrics: Count Gismond (1842), xiii.

Truth , Lie , Dead

“In general they are intoxicated by the fame of mass culture, a fame which the latter knows how to manipulate; they could just as well get together in clubs for worshipping film stars or for collecting autographs. What is important to them is the sense of belonging as such, identification, without paying particular attention to its content. As girls, they have trained themselves to faint upon hearing the voice of a 'crooner'. Their applause, cued in by a light-signal, is transmitted directly on the popular radio programmes they are permitted to attend. They call themselves 'jitter-bugs', bugs which carry out reflex movements, performers of their own ecstasy. Merely to be carried away by anything at all, to have something of their own, compensates for their impoverished and barren existence. The gesture of adolescence, which raves for this or that on one day with the ever-present possibility of damning it as idiocy on the next, is now socialized.”

Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969) German sociologist, philosopher and musicologist known for his critical theory of society

Perennial fashion — Jazz, as quoted in The Sociology of Rock (1978) by Simon Frith,

Girl , Star , Sense , Light

“The only saving grace of the present is that it's too damned stupid to question the past very closely.”

H.P. Lovecraft book Pickman's Model

"Pickman's Model " - written 1926; first published in Weird Tales, Vol. 10, No. 4 (October 1927)
Fiction

Stupidity , Question , Past

“All I say is that I think it is damned unlikely that anything like a central cosmic will, a spirit world, or an eternal survival of personality exist. They are the most preposterous and unjustified of all the guesses which can be made about the universe, and I am not enough of a hair-splitter to pretend that I don't regard them as arrant and negligible moonshine. In theory I am an agnostic, but pending the appearance of radical evidence I must be classed, practically and provisionally, as an atheist.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to Robert E. Howard (16 August 1932), in Selected Letters 1932-1934 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, p. 57
Non-Fiction, Letters

World , Thinking , Universe , Appearance

“Contrary to what you may assume, I am not a pessimist but an indifferentist—that is, I don't make the mistake of thinking that the resultant of the natural forces surrounding and governing organic life will have any connexion with the wishes or tastes of any part of that organic life-process. Pessimists are just as illogical as optimists; insomuch as both envisage the aims of mankind as unified, and as having a direct relationship (either of frustration or of fulfilment) to the inevitable flow of terrestrial motivation and events. That is—both schools retain in a vestigial way the primitive concept of a conscious teleology—of a cosmos which gives a damn one way or the other about the especial wants and ultimate welfare of mosquitos, rats, lice, dogs, men, horses, pterodactyls, trees, fungi, dodos, or other forms of biological energy.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to James F. Morton (1929), quoted in "H.P. Lovecraft, a Life" by S.T. Joshi, p. 483
Non-Fiction, Letters, to James Ferdinand Morton, Jr.

Life , Men , School , Dogs

“Did Stanton say I was a damned fool? Then I dare say I must be one, for Stanton is generally right and he always says what he means.”

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

As quoted in Lincoln; An Account of his Personal Life, Especially of its Springs of Action as Revealed and Deepened by the Ordeal of War (1922) by Nathaniel Wright Stephenson.
1860s

Fools

“There have been men who have proposed to me to return to slavery the black warriors of Port Hudson and Olustee to their masters to conciliate the South. I should be damned in time and in eternity for so doing.”

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

1860s, Interview with Alexander W. Randall and Joseph T. Mills (1864)
Context: There have been men who have proposed to me to return to slavery the black warriors of Port Hudson and Olustee to their masters to conciliate the South. I should be damned in time and in eternity for so doing. The world shall know that I will keep my faith to friends and enemies, come what will.

Men , Time

“Where do people get off saying the Beatles should give $200,000,000 to South America? You know, America has poured billions into places like that. It doesn't mean a damn thing. After they've eaten that meal, then what? It lasts for only a day. After the $200,000,000 is gone, then what? It goes round and round in circles. You can pour money in forever. After Peru, then Harlem, then Britain. There is no one concert. We would have to dedicate the rest of our lives to one world concert tour, and I'm not ready for it. Not in this lifetime, anyway.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Responding to suggestion that the Beatles should reunite to perform benefit concerts.
Playboy interview (1980)

Money , People , World

“A theologian is born by living, nay dying and being damned, not by thinking, reading, or speculating.”

Martin Luther book Table Talk

352
Table Talk (1569)

Thinking , Reading

“Omnipotence and foreknowledge of God, I repeat, utterly destroy the doctrine of 'free-will' … doubtless it gives the greatest possible offense to common sense or natural reason, that God, Who is proclaimed as being full of mercy and goodness, and so on, should of His own mere will abandon, harden and damn men, as though He delighted in the sins and great eternal torments of such poor wretches. It seems an iniquitous, cruel, intolerable thought to think of God; and it is this that has been such a stumbling block to so many great men down through the ages. And who would not stumble at it? I have stumbled at it myself more than once, down to the deepest pit of despair, so that I wished I had never been made a man. (That was before I knew how health-giving that despair was, and how close to grace”

Martin Luther book On the Bondage of the Will

Source: On the Bondage of the Will (1525), p. 217

Men , God , Health , Age

“My experience is that it's precisely the ones who don't know what to do with this life who are all hot and bothered about what they are going to do with another life. One sign that you're awakened is that you don't give a damn about what's going to happen in the next life. You're not bothered about it; you don't care. You are not interested, period.”

Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer

"The Illusion of Rewards", p. 42
Awareness (1992)

Life

“We don't have education, we have inspiration; if I was educated I would be a damn fool.”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

As recorded in Time Will Tell (1992), a documentary by Declan Lowney
Variant: We don't have education we have inspiration; if I was educated I would be a damn fool.
Source: Bob Marley - Legend

Education , Fools

“Either don't try at all or make damned sure you succeed.”
Aut non rem temptes aut perfice.

Ovid book Ars amatoria

Book I, line 389 (tr. James Michie)
Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love)

“I am well acquainted with all the arguments against freedom of thought and speech — the arguments which claim that it cannot exist, and the arguments which claim that it ought not to. I answer simply that they don't convince me and that our civilization over a period of four hundred years has been founded on the opposite notice. For quite a decade past I have believed that the existing Russian régime is a mainly evil thing, and I claim the right to say so, in spite of the fact that we are allies with the USSR in a war which I want to see won. If I had to choose a text to justify myself, I should choose the line from Milton:
: By the known rules of ancient liberty.
The word ancient emphasizes the fact that intellectual freedom is a deep-rooted tradition without which our characteristic western culture could only doubtfully exist. From that tradition many of our intellectuals are visibly turning away. They have accepted the principle that a book should be published or suppressed, praised or damned, not on its merits but according to political expediency. And others who do not actually hold this view assent to it from sheer cowardice.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

Original preface to Animal Farm; as published in George Orwell: Some Materials for a Bibliography (1953) by Ian R. Willison

War , Books , Freedom , Evil

“Don't cry. The damned don't cry.”

Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) American playwright, and Nobel laureate in Literature

Page 253.
Mourning Becomes Electra (1931)

Cry

“Or rather, I inherited the acquired trait of the by-product, wealth, but none of the energy, none of the strength of the steel that made it. I am sired by gold and damned by it, as they say at the race track — damned in more ways than one.”

Eugene O'Neill The Hairy Ape

Mildred: Scene 2
The Hairy Ape (1922)

Way , Wealth

“And, like the great damned souls, I shall always feel that thinking is worth more than living.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

Feeling , Soul , Thinking

“Up until now I'd always thought RSI meant 'I hate my damn job.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Usenet

Hate

“There should be a notice ahead of the movie that says 'This movie is PG. Can you read? You are a Parent. Do you understand what Guidance is? Or are you just another stupid toddler who thinks they're an adult simply because they've grown older and, unfortunately, have developed fully-functioning sexual organs? Would you like some committee somewhere to decide *everything* for you? Get a damn grip, will you? And shut the wretched kid up!”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

alt.fan.pratchett (10 July 2001) http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=uu9i54Ab2rS7EACj%40unseen.demon.co.uk
Usenet

Stupidity , Understanding , Thinking , Parent

“The dwarfs can turn lead into gold…
It reached the pointy ears of the dwarfs.
-Can we?
-Damned if I know. I can't.
-Yeah, but if you could, you wouldn't say. I wouldn't say, if I could.
-Can you?
-No!
-Ah-ha!”

Terry Pratchett book The Truth

Source: The Truth

“Bursar?"
"Yes, Archchancellor?"
"You ain't a member of some secret society or somethin', are you?"
"Me? No, Archchancellor."
"Then it'd be a damn good idea to take your underpants off your head.”

Terry Pratchett book Lords and Ladies

Source: Lords and Ladies

Secret , Idea

“Last night, I tell you, to watch that thing on television as I did. To see those, those monkeys from those African countries— damn them, they're still uncomfortable wearing shoes!”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Source: In a phone call to Richard Nixon about a television clip which showed members of the Tanzanian delegation dancing on the UN floor, after the UN voted to recognize China and expel Taiwan. https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/white-house-tapes/013 Conversation 013-008 of the White House Tapes, 6:30, quoted in * 2019-07-30

The Atlantic note: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/ronald-reagans-racist-conversation-richard-nixon/595102/ and in Ronald Reagan called Africans at UN 'monkeys', tapes reveal https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49177034, 31 July 2019, BBC note: 1970s

Shoe , Night , Country

“Since I came to the White House, I've gotten two hearing aids, had a colon operation, a prostate operation, skin cancer, and I've been shot… damn thing is, I've never felt better.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Source: Speaking My Mind: Selected Speeches

Housing

“Do what you feel in your heart to be right — for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be "damned if you do, and damned if you don't."”

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

As quoted in How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (1944; 1948) by Dale Carnegie; though Roosevelt has sometimes been credited with the originating the expression, "Damned if you do and damned if you don't" is set in quote marks, indicating she herself was quoting a common expression in saying this. Actually, this saying was coined back even earlier, 1836, by evangelist Lorenzo Dow in his sermons about ministers saying the Bible contradicts itself, telling his listeners, "… those who preach it up, to make the Bible clash and contradict itself, by preaching somewhat like this: 'You can and you can't-You shall and you shan't-You will and you won't-And you will be damned if you do-And you will be damned if you don't.' "

Feeling , Heart , Motivational

“Every time you meet a situation you think at the time it is an impossibility and you go through the tortures of the damned, once you have met it and lived through it, you find that forever after you are freer than you were before.”

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

Thinking , Time , Courageous

“Do what you feel in your heart to be right — for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't.”

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

As quoted in How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (1944; 1948) by Dale Carnegie; though Roosevelt has sometimes been credited with the originating the expression, "Damned if you do and damned if you don't" is set in quote marks, indicating she herself was quoting a common expression in saying this. Actually, this saying was coined back even earlier, 1836, by evangelist Lorenzo Dow in his sermons about ministers saying the Bible contradicts itself, telling his listeners, "… those who preach it up, to make the Bible clash and contradict itself, by preaching somewhat like this: 'You can and you can't-You shall and you shan't-You will and you won't-And you will be damned if you do-And you will be damned if you don't.' "

Feeling , Heart , Motivational

“Truly thou art damned, like an ill-roasted egg, all on one side.”

William Shakespeare As You Like It

Source: As You Like It

Art

“Out, damned spot! out, I say!”

William Shakespeare Macbeth

Source: Macbeth

“Oh, my brothers and sisters in Christ, if sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies; and if they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees, imploring them to stay, and not madly to destroy themselves. If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go there unwarned and unprayed for.”

Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) British preacher, author, pastor and evangelist

" No. 349 https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/sermons/the-wailing-of-risca"
The Wailing of Risca (1860)

Hell , Sister , Christ

“No, you don't wanna get me started. Jell-O with hair all in the mold. I'd be like, "Damn, man, how are you gonna mess up Jell-O?" Jell-O is so wholesome and family-like. It just ruins it for me. To have a hair in there, yeah. I mean, I'm like, "Come on, Bill Cosby pumps this, man!"”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

Posthumous attributions, Tupac: Resurrection (2003)

Family

“It's like if you plant something in the concrete and if it grow and the rose petal got all kinda scratches and marks, you ain't gonna say "damn, look at all the scratches and marks on the rose that grew from the concrete.." you gonna be like "DAMN! a ROSE grew from the CONCRETE?”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Often attributed to Twain, but he said it was attributed to Benjamin Disraeli and this itself is probably a misattribution: see Lies, damned lies, and statistics and Leonard H. Courtney. Twain did, however, popularize this saying in the United States. His attribution is in the following passage from Twain's Autobiography (1924), Vol. I, p. 246 (apparently written in Florence in 1904) http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/maths/histstat/lies.htm:
Figures often beguile me, particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics".
Misattributed

“I don't give a damn for a man who can only spell a word one way.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Unsourced in POP!: Create the Perfect Pitch, Title, and Tagline for Anything (2006) by Sam Horn.
Disputed

Way

“Jesus died to save men — a small thing for an immortal to do, & didn't save many, anyway; but if he had been damned for the race that would have been act of a size proper to a god, & would have saved the whole race. However, why should anybody want to save the human race, or damn it either? Does God want its society? Does Satan?”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Notebook #42

Men , God

“Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very;' your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Time

“We could have saved the earth, but we were too damned cheap.”

Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) American writer

If This Isn't Nice, What Is?: Advice for the Young (2013)

“If flying-saucer creatures or angels or whatever were to come here in a hundred years, say, and find us gone like the dinosaurs, what might be a good message for humanity to leave for them, maybe carved in great big letters on a Grand Canyon wall? Here is this old poop's suggestion: WE PROBABLY COULD HAVE SAVED OURSELVES, BUT WERE TOO DAMNED LAZY TO TRY VERY HARD…AND TOO DAMNED CHEAP.”

Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) American writer

Fates Worse than Death (1991)

Angels , Flying

“When Paul thought about his effortless rise in the hierarchy, he sometimes, as now, felt sheepish, like a charlatan. He could handle his assignments all right, but he didn’t have what his father had, what Kroner had, what Shepherd had, what so many had: the sense of spiritual importance in what they were doing; the ability to be moved emotionally, almost like a lover, by the great omnipresent and omniscient spook, the corporate personality. In short, what Paul missed was what made his father aggressive and great: the capacity to really give a damn.”

Kurt Vonnegut book Player Piano

Source: Player Piano (1952), Chapter 6 (pp. 66-67)

Lovers , Sense , Personality

“There's only one rule that I know of, babies — "God damn it, you've got to be kind."”

Kurt Vonnegut book God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1965)
Context: Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies — "God damn it, you've got to be kind."

God , Baby

“Every time you come in yelling that God damn "Rise and Shine!" "Rise and Shine!" I say to myself, "How lucky dead people are!"”

Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie

Tom, Scene Three
Source: The Glass Menagerie (1944)

God , People , Time , Dead

“I don't want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don't tell the truth, I tell what ought to be the truth. And it that's sinful, then let me be damned for it!”

Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire

Source: A Streetcar Named Desire

People , Truth

“It is said that within the council chamber the judges were naturally leaning toward acquittal. It becomes clear why, at that point, as justification for the verdict, it became vitally important to turn up some damning evidence, a secret document that, like God, could not be shown, but which explained everything, and was invisible, unknowable, and incontrovertible. I deny the existence of that document…. a document concerning national defense that could not be produced without sparking an immediate declaration of war tomorrow? No! No! It is a lie, all the more odious and cynical in that its perpetrators are getting off free without even admitting it. They stirred up all of France, they hid behind the understandable commotion they had set off, they sealed their lips while troubling our hearts and perverting our spirit. I know of no greater crime against the state.”

Emile Zola J’accuse…!

J'accuse! (1898)

God , War , Lie , Secret

“Yeah. The guy's up against massive challenges, dealing with consequences, and figuring how to get what he wants and what he believes is right. He's living his worst nightmare, and he's doing everything he can. He's a damn good lawyer and he knows the system, but he's having to pull jokers out of his sleeve and win certain things on sheer willpower and gamble and meddle, you know? So that's what dramas allow, more so than a comedy. It's real-life consequences. The blows, the punches really hurt. The bullets really land. The people really bleed. People really cry. People really enjoy victory. People really feel pain and defeat. You can love harder. You can cry harder. You can be more angry, harder. That's what dramas allow.”

Matthew McConaughey (1969) American actor

" Exclusive interview with Matthew Mcconaughey http://www.hollywood.com/news/movies/7774937/exclusive-interview-with-matthew-mcconaughey?page=all" on hollywood.com, March 18, 2011: On playing Mick Haller in the The Lincoln Lawyer

Love , Life , Pain , People

“Europe today is a powder keg and the leaders are like men smoking in an arsenal … A single spark will set off an explosion that will consume us all … I cannot tell you when that explosion will occur, but I can tell you where … Some damned foolish thing in the Balkans will set it off.”

Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898) German statesman, Chancellor of Germany

No record of this quotation appears to exist in German.
In The World Crisis, Vol I: 1911-1914 https://books.google.com/books?id=6l6Fgnz8fXIC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA96#v=onepage&q&f=false (originally published in 1923), Winston Churchill asserted that during the July Crisis, German shipping magnate and diplomat Albert Ballin told him that Bismarck had said to him, "that one day the great European War would come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans" a year before his death.
The full quote above appears in "European Diary" by Andrei Navrozov, in Chronicles Vol. 32 (2008) as a comment during the Congress of Berlin in 1878. "European Diary" is a series of excerpts from Navrozov's unpublished (as of 2017) novel in English, Earthly Love: A Day in the Life of a Hypocrite.
Disputed

Men

“I think that the online world has actually brought books back. People are reading because they're reading the damn screen. That's more reading than people used to do.”

Bill Murray (1950) American actor and comedian

Interview with Jessica Lee Jernigan (May 1999) http://jessicaleejernigan.typepad.com/jessica_lee_jernigan/2004/08/archival_interv.html

People , Books , World , Thinking

“The damned thing works! (telegram, on the first successful television broadcast)”

Philo Farnsworth (1906–1971) American inventor

George Everson
Official Website of Philo Farnsworth https://www.cmgww.com/historic/farnsworth/

Success

“At the age of 25 most people were finished. A whole god-damned nation of assholes driving automobiles, eating, having babies, doing everything in the worst way possible, like voting for the presidential candidate who reminded them most of themselves.”

Charles Bukowski book Ham on Rye

Ham On Rye (1982)
Source: Ham on Rye
Context: The problem was you had to keep choosing between one evil or another, and no matter what you chose, they sliced a little more off you, until there was nothing left. At the age of 25 most people were finished. A whole goddamned nation of assholes driving automobiles, eating, having babies, doing everything in the worst way possible, like voting for the presidential candidate who reminded them most of themselves. I had no interests. I had no interest in anything. I had no idea how I was going to escape. At least the others had some taste for life. They seemed to understand something that I didn't understand. Maybe I was lacking. It was possible. I often felt inferior. I just wanted to get away from them. But there was no place to go.

God , People , Age , Way

“Hitler had the willpower of a demon and he needed it. If he didn't have such a strong willpower he couldn't have achieved anything. Don't forget, if Hitler had not lost the war, if he did not have to fight against the combination of big powers like England, America, and Russia — each one he could have conquered individually — these defendants and these generals would now be saying, 'Heil Hitler,' and would not be so damn critical.”

Hermann Göring (1893–1946) German politician and military leader

To Leon Goldensohn (24 May 1946)
The Nuremberg Interviews (2004)

War , Strong , Fight , Forgetting

“When someone is drowning, you have to approach them extremely carefully. This is because, if they are panicking and they grab you, then you both drown. And that's stupid, because you both drown. That's a really good metaphor for trying to help someone. When people are in real trouble, some of it is that they're confused, some of it is that their life has collapsed around them, and there's some malevolence there and some desire for vengeance (it's one dangerous mess). If you're going to wade in there unprepared, the possibility that they're going to take you down compared with you elevating them is very high, because you don't even know what your damn psychological stability rests on. You might be sane just because you're lucky and surrounded by good people. That doesn't mean that you have the psychological wherewithal to pull someone up from the depths of the underworld, especially if they have one foot in hell. You should bloody well be careful about doing that kind of thing. It's hubristic to attempt it, and I would definitely caution people – be very careful about rescuing people who don't want to be rescued. It's very dangerous activity, and it can easily be counterproductive.”

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

Other

Life , People , Stupidity , Hell

“Do not despair: one thief was saved. Do not presume: one thief was damned.”

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

Attributed to St. Augustine in The Repentance of Robert Greene, Master of Arts http://www.oxford-shakespeare.com/Greene/Repentance_Robert_Greene.pdf (1592) by Robert Greene.
Disputed
Variant: Do not despair; one of the thieves was saved. Do not presume; one of the thieves was damned.

Despair

“Damn right I like the life I live, 'cause I went from negative to positive.”

The Notorious B.I.G. (1972–1997) American rapper

Song lyrics, Ready to Die (1994), "Juicy"

Life

“We refuse to have our conscience bound by any work or law, so that by doing this or that we should be righteous, or leaving this or that undone we should be damned.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Source: Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1535), Chapter 2

Law

“I absolutely reject the premise there is anything wrong with Black people “talking white”. It is as if to vast swathes of the privileged white left and impoverished Black community diction, education and a mastery of thought is somehow “white”… comrade, how wrong you are to say that after decades in academia I’m acting white. I’m being black. I’m being black everyday a cop pulls my car over for a “routine stop”, I’m being black each time I look in the mirror, and I’m damn well being black when I school young fools out of the myth our race is too ill-evolved to be both black and accomplished.”

Elaine Brown (1943) American activist

People , Education , School , Fools

“We don't owe the white man nothing in South Africa. He's killed millions of our women, our children, our babies, our elders.… If he won't get out of town by sundown, we kill everything white that ain't right that's in sight in South Africa. We kill the women, we kill the children, we kill the babies. We kill the blind, we kill the crippled, we kill them all … and kill them a-god-damn-gain because they didn't die hard enough.”

Khalid Abdul Muhammad (1948–2001) American activist

Kean College speech

Women , God , Children , Baby

“I raise my glass to the Awful Truth,
Which you can't reveal to the Ears of Youth,
Except to say it isn't worth a dime,
And the whole damn place goes crazy twice,
And it's once for the Devil and once for Christ”

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

Truth , Youth , Christ

“Without that forward-going, courageous consciousness, a woman herself will drift into unconsciousness and terror. It's the sleep of the naive and damned. She needs to wake herself up and bring her own masculine consciousness into the forefront so she can survive in the world. Unless woman is taken out of man, then she isn't a human being – she's just a creature.”

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

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ifi5KkXig3s "Biblical Series IV: Adam and Eve: Self-Consciousness, Evil, and Death"

World , Courage , Sleep

“One could say I was goofy somewhere, and maybe even outed someone, but not that I was an agent. Not that I wanted to betray anybody. (…) I swear, and damn me if I lie.”

Lech Wałęsa (1943) Polish politician, Nobel Peace Prize winner, former President of Poland

Można powiedzieć, że byłem gdzieś niezręczny, może nawet kogoś wsypałem, ale nie to, że byłem agentem. Nie to, że chciałem kogoś zdradzić (...) Przysięgam i niech mnie szlag trafi, jeśli kłamię.
From the IV Copernican Debate at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, after Gazeta.pl http://miasta.gazeta.pl/torun/1,48723,6510083,Walesa__Przysiegam__ze_nie_bylem_agentem.html and TVN24 http://www.tvn24.pl/1,1596041,druk.html

Lie

“You should write, first of all, to please yourself. You shouldn't care a damn about anybody else at all. But writing can't be a way of life - the important part of writing is living. You have to live in such a way that your writing emerges from it.”

Doris Lessing (1919–2013) British novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, biographer and short story writer

Life , Way , Parting

“I wanted man to become a master! So he wouldn't have to live from hand to mouth! I didn't want to see another soul grow numb slaving over someone else's machines! I wanted there to be nothing, nothing, nothing left of that damned social mess! I abhorred degradation and suffering! I was fighting against poverty! I wanted a new generation of mankind! … I wanted to transform all of humanity into a world-wide aristocracy. Unrestricted, free, and supreme people. Something even greater than people.”

Karel Čapek R.U.R.

R.U.R. (1920)

People , World , Soul , Suffering

“Easy reading is damn hard writing.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) American novelist and short story writer (1804 – 1879)

Also attributed to Ernest Hemingway and others; the earliest definite occurrence of this yet found in research for Wikiquote is by Maya Angelou, who stated it in Conversations With Maya Angelou (1989) edited by Jeffrey M. Elliot:
I think it's Alexander Pope who says, "Easy writing is damn hard reading," and vice versa, easy reading is damn hard writing
The statement she referred to is most probably:
You write with ease, to show your breeding,
But easy writing's curst hard reading
Clio's Protest, or the Picture Varnished (written 1771, published 1819) by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Disputed

Reading

“I am too sick to lay down
the sidewalks frighten me
the whole damned city frightens me,
what I will become
what I have become
frightens me.”

Charles Bukowski book Mockingbird Wish Me Luck

Source: Mockingbird Wish Me Luck

“The Gospel that we preach is the power of God unto salvation; and the first principle of that Gospel is, as I have already said, faith in God, and faith in Jesus Christ His Son our Savior. We must believe that he is the character he is represented to be in the holy Scriptures. Believe that he told the truth when he said to his disciples, "Go ye forth and preach the Gospel to every creature; he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned." We must believe that this same Jesus was crucified for the sins of the world, that is for the original sin, not the actual individual transgressions of the people; not but that the blood of Christ will cleanse from all sin, all who are disposed to act their part by repentance, and faith in his name. But the original sin was atoned for by the death of Christ, although its effects we still see in the diseases, tempers and every species of wickedness with which the human family is afflicted.”

Brigham Young (1801–1877) Latter Day Saint movement leader

Journal of Discourses 13:143 (July 11, 1869)
1860s

Death , God , People , Truth

“Talking to a conservative is like talking to your refrigerator… You know, the light goes on, the light goes off; it's not going to do anything that isn't built into it… And I'm not going to talk to a conservative anymore than I talk to my damn refrigerator.”

Utah Phillips (1935–2008) American labor organizer, folk singer, storyteller and poet

Track 5: "Candidacy" The Past Didn't go Anywhere, Righteous Babe Records (1996)

Light

“My fur is silky, damn it.”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: Unraveled

“Damn it, how will I ever get out of this labyrinth?”

Simón Bolívar (1783–1830) Venezuelan military and political leader, South American libertador

A statement made in the last months of his life, occasionally said to be his last words, and portrayed as such in The General in His Labyrinth (1990) by Gabriel García Márquez, as translated by Edith Grossman, p. 267.

“When the Twin Towers fell—I felt a dentist had pulled out my two front teeth. I could not laugh anymore. And I have the smile of a smiling damned villain. But I also felt the hole in my mouth became a garage, and entering that garage were terrorists in trucks full of explosives and French diplomats—to f*ck us more with other nations—to run over our dead bodies.”

Giannina Braschi book United States of Banana

United States of Banana (2011)

Smile , Dead

“A lot has changed, El Paso, a lot has changed. One thing's for sure, I'm still the fluffy guy. And I say "fluffy" because that is the politically correct term, for those of you who don't remember I used to say that there were Five Levels of Fatness. Reason why I say "Used to say" is because now there are six! Uh-huh, I met the new one in Las Cruces. The original five levels are Big, Healthy, Husky, Fluffy, and DAMN! People ask, "What could be bigger than DAMN!" The new level's called "OH HELL NO!" What's the difference? You're still willing to work with level five. Example, if you're on an elevator and you're with your friend and this really big guy gets on and you and your friend look at each other and you're like, "DAAAMN!" But you still let the big guy ride your elevator. That's the difference. Level six, you see walking towards your elevator, [Deep growling noise] [Pretends to be a shocked passenger and starts pushing the "close door" button. ] "OH HELL NO!" [Growl] "NO!!" [Growl] "NO!!" [Pretends to kick the fat man out] That's the difference. The guy that I met was six foot eight, six hundred and fourteen pounds. Uh-huh, OH HELL NO!! And he was offended at my show. Not by anything that I said, but because of the fact that now at the shows I started selling T-shirts and apparently, I didn't have his size. Keep in mind, I go all the way up to 5X on the T-shirts and he was like, [Deep growling voice] "You don't have my size." I was like, "Dude, I didn't know they MADE you! I have up to 5X, I don't have [Growl] X!"”

Gabriel Iglesias (1976) American actor

A picture of a dinosaur on the back of the tag, you know?
I'm Not Fat, I'm Fluffy (2009)

People , Way , Guy , Hell

“I have been a damn fool all my life, searching for something which does not exist. My search is at an end.”

U.G. Krishnamurti book Mind is a Myth

Quoted in Introduction by Terry Newland
Mind is a Myth (1987)
Context: I have assumed that the goal, enlightenment, exists. I have had to search and it is the search itself which has been choking me and keeping me out of my natural state. There is no such thing as spiritual or psychological enlightenment because there is no such thing as spirit or psyche. I have been a damn fool all my life, searching for something which does not exist. My search is at an end.

Life , Fools , Search

“It's a damn good story. If you have any comments, write them on the back of a check.”

Erle Stanley Gardner (1889–1970) Lawyer, novelist, travel writer

“Such delusions of grandeur to think that a God with a hundred billion galaxies on his mind would give a tuppenny damn who you sleep with, or indeed whether you believe in him.”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

Richard Dawkins debates Rowan Williams (2013) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVxciEFyBT0&t=32m42s

God , Thinking , Sleep

“The idea that I'm a homosexual thrill killer, that I stroll down the streets and stalk young boys and slaughter them… Hell, if you could see my schedule, my work schedule, you knew damn well that I was never out there.”

John Wayne Gacy (1942–1994) American serial killer and torturer

Biography - John Wayne Gacy: Monster in Disguise. A & E Home Video, 2000. Watched March 1, 2010.

Boy , Idea , Hell

“There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Attributed to Disraeli by Mark Twain in "Chapters from My Autobiography — XX", North American Review No. DCXVIII (JULY 5, 1907) http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19987. His attribution is considered unreliable, and the actual origin is uncertain, with one of the earliest known publications of such a phrase being that of Leonard H. Courtney: see Lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Misattributed

“The Rock: And I quote: You know your damn role and Shut Your Damn Mouth!”

Dwayne Johnson (1972) American actor and professional wrestler

The Rock's return to WWE Raw as host of WrestleMania XXVII (14 February, 2011) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8ejiG5-BtA&feature=related.

Quotes

“I will not change my opinion, dear people, it is 5 minutes before twelve. Not just here in Holland. but in the whole of Europe. And is that what you want? I take my stand for this country, that which has been build up in the last five or six centuries. Damn it, we have a fifth column… Okay, let me tell you now straight the way it is! A fifth column of people who want to destroy this country! I will not go for that, and I say, "you can stay here, but you must adapt." I must hear "Allah is great", that I am a "dirty pig"… you are a "Christian dog". That is what they say, and you think that is okay… And I have so far been very reserved. I have never repeated that… but you accept being walked over, and I will not let that happen anymore. And that's where I get all those seats from (in the polls). Because this country is fed up! … C'est ça! That is what I stand for. And if I must express that otherwise, well, fine… but it is about your children, your grandchildren. For what else is this about? Must I explain more here? I can not do it any other way, and will not do it any other way. Then I would rather be finished off. Okay, fine… but the problem sir, will remain. That will remain. People have had more than enough of it. Damn it, in my city, Moroccan boys, Turkish boys… who do not rob the Turks, the Moroccans, but rob you and me and little old ladies. And the police? What they do? Damn it… nothing. They tell you: "If you say that, you discriminate". And that is what I express from the Dutch people. And I stand for it, I stand for it. Is that not allowed? Okay, I respect that. C'est ça”

Pim Fortuyn (1948–2002) Dutch politician

That’s all
Nederland 2 documentary "The Night of Fortuyn" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgM9JozWOf0

Children , People , Dogs , Way

“Look these bastards in the eyes, and if anyone attacks you, already decide who will be the one to disconnect the railing where you are, and beat the hell out of them, the no-good bastards! And if you don't have a gun, every one of them has one gun, two guns, maybe three guns. In self-defense, if they attack you, take their goddamn guns from them and use their guns on them! In self-defense. Giuliani is known for taking his police and sending them off in riots. If any one of these bastards riots here today, you take their nightstick the way they did brother Abner Louima and ram it up their behind and jam it down their damn throats!”

Khalid Abdul Muhammad (1948–2001) American activist

Million Youth March (5 September 1998), quoted in The Village Voice (13 October 1998) "The Hunt for Khallid Abdul Muhammad" by Peter Noel

Way , Hell

“Thanks to guys like Boss Tweed, famous for saying, 'I don't give a damn who does the voting, as long as I do the nominating,' there hasn't been an honest election in the USA since sometime around the War Between the States.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

"Libertarians: The Connies Speak Out (Part Two)," http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2005/tle339-20051002-02.html 2 October 2005.

War , Guy

“It is a damn poor mind indeed which can't think of at least two ways to spell any word.”

Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) American general and politician, 7th president of the United States

Sometimes reported as having been a retort to statements of his political rival, John Quincy Adams, who had boycotted Harvard University's awarding of a Doctorate of Laws degree to Jackson in 1833, declaring "I would not be present to witness her [Harvard's] disgrace in conferring her highest literary honors on a barbarian who could not write a sentence of grammar and could hardly spell his own name." Quoted in News Reporting and Writing 4th edition (1987) by M. Mencher.
Unsourced variant: Never trust a man who has only one way to spell a word.
Likely misattributed http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/06/25/spelling/

Way , Thinking

“Corporations have neither bodies to kick nor souls to damn.”

Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) American general and politician, 7th president of the United States

This is widely attributed to Jackson on the internet, but in research done for Wikiquote, no published source has been found. Similar remarks, "Corporations have neither bodies to be punished, nor souls to be condemned, they therefore do as they like." and "It has no soul to damn and no body to kick." have been attributed to Edward Thurlow, 1st Baron Thurlow (9 December 1731 – 12 September 1806).
Disputed

Soul