Quotes about everybody
page 3

Barack Obama photo
Barack Obama photo
Vivienne Westwood photo

“Get rid of those terrible jeans that everybody else wears. And wear something different for a change, so you don't just look like a clone.”

Vivienne Westwood (1941–2022) English fashion designer and businesswoman

Talking about her manifesto, on the Daily Mayo http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/podcasts/mayo/ (25 April 2008)

Sylvia Earle photo
Joseph Gordon-Levitt photo
Whoopi Goldberg photo

“Well, when I was nine years old, Star Trek came on, I looked at it and I went screaming through the house. 'Come here, mum, everybody, come quick, come quick, there's a black lady on television and she ain't no maid!”

Whoopi Goldberg (1955) American actress

Whoopie Goldberg "“When I was 9 years old, Star Trek came on…” ~ Whoopi Goldberg" http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/03/when-i-was-9-years-old-star-trek-came-on-whoopi-goldberg/ March 8, 2014.

Jules Verne photo

“Everybody knows that the great reversed triangle of land, with its base in the north and its apex in the south, which is called India, embraces fourteen hundred thousand square miles, upon which is spread unequally a population of one hundred and eighty millions of souls. The British Crown exercises a real and despotic dominion over the larger portion of this vast country, and has a governor-general stationed at Calcutta, governors at Madras, Bombay, and in Bengal, and a lieutenant-governor at Agra.

But British India, properly so called, only embraces seven hundred thousand square miles, and a population of from one hundred to one hundred and ten millions of inhabitants. A considerable portion of India is still free from British authority; and there are certain ferocious rajahs in the interior who are absolutely independent.”

<p>Personne n'ignore que l'Inde — ce grand triangle renversé dont la base est au nord et la pointe au sud — comprend une superficie de quatorze cent mille milles carrés, sur laquelle est inégalement répandue une population de cent quatre-vingts millions d'habitants. Le gouvernement britannique exerce une domination réelle sur une certaine partie de cet immense pays. Il entretient un gouverneur général à Calcutta, des gouverneurs à Madras, à Bombay, au Bengale, et un lieutenant-gouverneur à Agra.</p><p>Mais l'Inde anglaise proprement dite ne compte qu'une superficie de sept cent mille milles carrés et une population de cent à cent dix millions d'habitants. C'est assez dire qu'une notable partie du territoire échappe encore à l'autorité de la reine; et, en effet, chez certains rajahs de l'intérieur, farouches et terribles, l'indépendance indoue est encore absolue.</p>
Source: Around the World in Eighty Days (1873), Ch. X: In Which Passepartout Is Only Too Glad to Get Off with the Loss of His Shoes

James Brown photo

“Sometimes you struggle so hard to feed your family one way, you forget to feed them the other way, with spiritual nourishment. Everybody needs that.”

James Brown (1933–2006) American singer, songwriter, musician, and recording artist

Brown, J. & Tucker, B.B. (1986). James Brown: The Godfather of Soul. Macmillan: New York. ISBN 0-02517-430-4

Stanisław Jerzy Lec photo
Mark Twain photo

“Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Notes on sourcing http://www.bartleby.com/73/1982.html
Twain did say:
: "There is a sumptuous variety about the New England weather that compels the stranger's admiration — and regret. The weather is always doing something there … In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of four and twenty hours. ...
Yes, one of the brightest gems in the New England weather is the dazzling uncertainty of it."
:* Speech at the dinner of New England Society in New York City (22 December 1876)
Misattributed

John Glenn photo

“I pray every day and I think everybody should. I don't think you can be up here and look out the window as I did the first day and look out at the Earth from this vantage point. We're not so high compared to people who went to the moon and back. But to look out at this kind of creation out here and not believe in God is, to me, impossible. It just strengthens my faith.”

John Glenn (1921–2016) American astronaut and politician

As quoted in Roger D. Launius. 2004. Frontiers of Space Exploration. Greenwood Publishing Group, p. 181. Interview: An American hero returns to space: John Glenn and the Sts-95 Shuttle Mission News Conference on Orbit (5 November 1998).

Barack Obama photo
Kurt Vonnegut photo

“Everybody's shaking in his boots, so don't be bluffed.”

Source: Player Piano (1952), Chapter 22 (p. 219)

Octavia E. Butler photo
Justin Bieber photo

“I don't want to start singing about things like sex, drugs and swearing. I'm into love, and maybe I'll get more into making love when I'm older. But I want to be someone who is respected by everybody.”

Justin Bieber (1994) Canadian singer-songwriter, record producer, and actor

Source: Interview with V Magazine, as quoted in UsMagazine: Justin Bieber Talks Sex, Drugs and Turning 18 http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/justin-bieber-talks-sex-drugs-and-turning-18-2012101, January 2012

Sukirti Kandpal photo
Adolfo Bioy Casares photo

“Revolution: Political movement which gets many people´s hopes up, let´s even more people down, makes almost everybody uncomfortable, and a few, extraordinarily rich. It is widely held in high regard.”

Adolfo Bioy Casares (1914–1999) Argentine novelist

"Revolución: Movimiento político que ilusiona a muchos, desiluciona a más, incomoda a casi todos y enriquece extraordinariamente a unos pocos. Goza de firme prestigio."
Descanso de caminantes, 2001.

Albert Szent-Györgyi photo

“Research is to see what everybody has seen and think what nobody has thought.”

Albert Szent-Györgyi (1893–1986) Hungarian biochemist who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1937

Albert Szent-Györgyi (1957), Academic Press. Bioenergetics https://archive.org/details/bioenergetics00szen Part II: Biological structures and functions, p. 57

Bertrand Russell photo

“A great deal of work is sedentary, and most manual work exercises only a few specialized muscles. When crowds assemble in Trafalgar Square to cheer to the echo an announcement that the government has decided to have them killed, they would not do so if they had all walked twenty-five miles that day. This cure for bellicosity is, however, impracticable, and if the human race is to survive – a thing which is, perhaps, undesirable – other means must be found for securing an innocent outlet for the unused physical energy that produces love of excitement. This is a matter which has been too little considered, both by moralists and by social reformers. The social reformers are of the opinion that they have more serious things to consider. The moralists, on the other hand, are immensely impressed with the seriousness of all the permitted outlets of the love of excitement; the seriousness, however, in their minds, is that of Sin. Dance halls, cinemas, this age of jazz, are all, if we may believe our ears, gateways to Hell, and we should be better employed sitting at home contemplating our sins. I find myself unable to be in entire agreement with the grave men who utter these warnings. The devil has many forms, some designed to deceive the young, some designed to deceive the old and serious. If it is the devil that tempts the young to enjoy themselves, is it not, perhaps, the same personage that persuades the old to condemn their enjoyment? And is not condemnation perhaps merely a form of excitement appropriate to old age? And is it not, perhaps, a drug which – like opium – has to be taken in continually stronger doses to produce the desired effect? Is it not to be feared that, beginning with the wickedness of the cinema, we should be led step by step to condemn the opposite political party, dagoes, wops, Asiatics, and, in short, everybody except the fellow members of our club? And it is from just such condemnations, when widespread, that wars proceed. I have never heard of a war that proceeded from dance halls.”

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

1950s, What Desires Are Politically Important? (1950)

Alex Jones photo
Terry Pratchett photo
Kurt Vonnegut photo
Barack Obama photo
Mark Twain photo

“Definition of a classic — something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Quoting or paraphrasing a Professor Winchester in "Disappearance of Literature" http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=TwaSpee.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=52&division=div1, speech at the Nineteenth Century Club, New York, 20 November 1900, in Mark Twain's Speeches (1910), ed. William Dean Howells, p. 194 http://books.google.com/books?id=7etXZ5Q17ngC&pg=PA194
Variant: A classic – something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.

Bertrand Russell photo
Barack Obama photo

“[D]emocracy is not something that is static; it’s something that we constantly have to work on. […]democracy is a little messier than alternative systems of government, but that’s because democracy allows everybody to have a voice. And that system of government lasts, and it’s legitimate, and when agreements are finally struck, you know that nobody is being left out of the conversation. And that’s the reason for our stability and our prosperity.”

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

Joint news conference with Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra at Government House, Bangkok, Thailand on November 18, 2012 http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/11/18/remarks-president-obama-and-prime-minister-shinawatra-joint-press-confer
2012

Lewis Carroll photo
Barack Obama photo
Marc Jacobs photo
Jordan Peterson photo

“One of the things Jung said is everybody acts out a myth but very few people know what their myth is and you should know what your myth is because it might be a tragedy and maybe you don't want it to be.”

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

Biblical Series I: Introduction to the Idea of God
20 May 2017
YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-wWBGo6a2w
Biblical Lectures

Nastassja Kinski photo
Barack Obama photo
Hasan ibn Ali photo
Whoopi Goldberg photo
Ronald Reagan photo

“When the chips are down and the decisions are made as to who the candidates will be, then the 11th commandment prevails and everybody goes to work, and that is: Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican.”

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

Remarks in New York City at a Reception for Delegates to the State Republican Convention http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1982/61782e.htm (17 June 1982), this is a restatement of "The Eleventh Commandment" by California Republican Party Chairman Gaylord Parkinson, which Reagan first used in 1966
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)

Fred Rogers photo
Bertrand Russell photo
Barack Obama photo

“Treat people with respect, whoever they are, and expect your governments to treat everybody with respect. And if you do that, then you’re going to be okay.”

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

2014, Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Town Hall (April 2014)

Kurt Vonnegut photo
Barack Obama photo
Li Yundi photo
Barack Obama photo
Dylan Moran photo
Alexander Suvorov photo
Tupac Shakur photo
George Washington photo

“There is nothing that gives a man consequence, and renders him fit for command, like a support that renders him independent of everybody but the State he serves.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

Letter to the president of Congress, Heights of Harlem (24 September 1776)
1770s

Napoleon I of France photo

“I see that everybody has lost their head since the infamous capitulation of Bailén. I realise that I must go there myself to get the machine working again.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Said after Dupont's capitulation at w:Bailén to the Spanish (1808), as quoted in The Art of Warfare on Land (1974) by David G. Chandler, p. 164

Ben Horowitz photo
Voltaire photo

“When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

Quand il s’agit d’argent, tout le monde est de la même religion.
Letter to Mme. d'Épinal, Ferney (26 December 1760) from Oeuvres Complètes de Voltaire: Correspondance (Garnier frères, Paris, 1881), vol. IX, letter # 4390 (p. 124)
Citas

Bertrand Russell photo
Fernando Pessoa photo

“What's most worthless about dreams is that everybody has them.”

Ibid., p. 145
The Book of Disquiet
Original: O que há de mais reles nos sonhos é que todos os têm.

Sathya Sai Baba photo

“I know everything that has happened to everybody in the past, everything that is happening now and everything that will happen in the future.”

Sathya Sai Baba (1926–2011) Indian guru

Sathyam, Sivam, Sundaram - Part 3. by N. Kasturi. Page 305 US ed. Next to the last chapter.

Kurt Vonnegut photo
Lewis Carroll photo
Vivian Stanshall photo

“Why can't I be different and original, like everybody else?”

Vivian Stanshall (1943–1995) English musician, artist and author

Men Opening Umbrellas Ahead
Others

Barack Obama photo
Andy Rooney photo

“It's a sad day at 60 Minutes and for everybody here at CBS News. It's hard to imagine not having Andy around. He loved his life and he lived it on his own terms. We will miss him very much.”

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

Jeff Fager — quoted in CBS News, Andy Rooney dead at 92, November 5, 2011, CBS, October 31, 2013 http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57319150/andy-rooney-dead-at-92/,
About

Émile Durkheim photo
V.S. Naipaul photo

“Everybody is interesting for an hour, but few people can last more than two.”

V.S. Naipaul (1932–2018) Trinidadian-British writer of Indo-Nepalese ancestry

As quoted in "Wanderer of Endless Curiosity" by R. Z. Sheppard in Time magazine (10 July 1989) http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,958134,00.html

Steve Irwin photo
Anthony de Mello photo

“It's only when you become love — in other words, when you have dropped your illusions and attachments — that you will "know." As you identify less and less with the "me," you will be more at ease with everybody and with everything.”

Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer

"A Changed Person", p. 96
Awareness (1992)
Context: It's only when you become love — in other words, when you have dropped your illusions and attachments — that you will "know." As you identify less and less with the "me," you will be more at ease with everybody and with everything. Do you know why? Because you are no longer afraid of being hurt or not liked. You no longer desire to impress anyone. Can you imagine the relief when you don't have to impress anybody anymore? Oh, what a relief. Happiness at last! You no longer feel the need or the compulsion to explain things anymore. It's all right. What is there to be explained? And you don't feel the need or compulsion to apologize anymore. I'd much rather hear you say, "I've come awake," than hear you say, "I'm sorry." I'd much rather hear you say to me, "I've come awake since we last met; what I did to you won't happen again," than to hear you say, "I'm so sorry for what I did to you."

Doris Lessing photo

“Everybody in the world is thinking: I wish there was just one other person I could really talk to, who could really understand me, who'd be kind to me.”

The Golden Notebook (1962)
Context: Do you know what people really want? Everyone, I mean. Everybody in the world is thinking: I wish there was just one other person I could really talk to, who could really understand me, who'd be kind to me. That's what people really want, if they're telling the truth.

Errico Malatesta photo

“Theoretically "democracy" means popular government; government by all for everybody by the efforts of all.”

Errico Malatesta (1853–1932) Italian anarchist

Neither Democrats, Nor Dictators: Anarchists (1926)
Context: Theoretically "democracy" means popular government; government by all for everybody by the efforts of all. In a democracy the people must be able to say what they want, to nominate the executors of their wishes, to monitor their performance and remove them when they see fit.
Naturally this presumes that all the individuals that make up a people are able to form an opinion and express it on all the subjects that interest them. It implies that everyone is politically and economically independent and therefore no-one, to live, would be obliged to submit to the will of others. <!--
If classes and individuals exist that are deprived of the means of production and therefore dependent on others with a monopoly over those means, the so-called democratic system can only be a lie, and one which serves to deceive the mass of the people and keep them docile with an outward show of sovereignty, while the rule of the privileged and dominant class is in fact salvaged and consolidated. Such is democracy and such it always has been in a capitalist structure, whatever form it takes, from constitutional monarchy to so-called direct rule.

William Saroyan photo

“One day, back there in the good old days when I was nine and the world was full of every kind of magnificence, and life was still a delightful and mysterious dream, my cousin Mourad, who was considered crazy by everybody who knew him except me, came to my house at four in the morning and woke me up by tapping on the window of my room.”

"The Summer of the Beautiful White Horse".
My Name Is Aram (1940)
Context: One day, back there in the good old days when I was nine and the world was full of every kind of magnificence, and life was still a delightful and mysterious dream, my cousin Mourad, who was considered crazy by everybody who knew him except me, came to my house at four in the morning and woke me up by tapping on the window of my room.
"Aram," he said.
I jumped out of bed and looked out the window.
I couldn't believe what I saw.
It wasn't morning yet, but it was summer and with daybreak not many minutes around the corner of the world it was light enough for me to know I wasn't dreaming.
My cousin Mourad was sitting on a beautiful white horse.

Rajneesh photo

“Only the future … as man becomes more and more available to the mysterious, to the meaningless yet significant … After a hundred years they will understand. Because the more man becomes aware of the mysterious side of life, the less he is political; the less he is a Hindu, a Mohammedan, a Christian; the less is the possibility for his being a fanatic. A man in tune with the mysterious is humble, loving, caring, accepting the uniqueness of everybody. He is rejoicing in the freedom of each individual, because only with freedom can this garden of humanity be a rich place.”

Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement

The Osho Upanishad
Context: I do not ordinarily make prophecies, but about this I am absolutely prophetic: the coming hundred years are going to be more and more irrational, and more and more mystical. The second thing: After a hundred years people will be perfectly able to understand why I was misunderstood — because I am the beginning of the mystical, the irrational. I am a discontinuity with the past. The past cannot understand me; only the future will understand. The past can only condemn me. It cannot understand me, it cannot answer me, it cannot argue with me; it can only condemn me. Only the future … as man becomes more and more available to the mysterious, to the meaningless yet significant … After a hundred years they will understand. Because the more man becomes aware of the mysterious side of life, the less he is political; the less he is a Hindu, a Mohammedan, a Christian; the less is the possibility for his being a fanatic. A man in tune with the mysterious is humble, loving, caring, accepting the uniqueness of everybody. He is rejoicing in the freedom of each individual, because only with freedom can this garden of humanity be a rich place.

P. J. O'Rourke photo
Immanuel Kant photo

“As everybody likes to be honoured, so people imagine that God also wants to be honoured. They forget that the fulfilment of duty towards men is the only honour adequate to him.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

As quoted in German Thought, From The Seven Years' War To Goethe's Death : Six Lectures (1880) by Karl Hillebrand, p. 208
Context: As everybody likes to be honoured, so people imagine that God also wants to be honoured. They forget that the fulfilment of duty towards men is the only honour adequate to him. Thus is formed the conception of a religion of worship, instead of a merely moral religion. … Apart from moral conduct, all that man thinks himself able to do in order to become acceptable to God is mere superstition and religious folly. If once a man has come to the idea of a service which is not purely moral, but is supposed to be agreeable to God himself, or capable of propitiating him, there is little difference between the several ways of serving him. For all these ways are of equal value. … Whether the devotee accomplishes his statutory walk to the church, or whether he undertakes a pilgrimage to the sanctuaries of Loretto and Palestine, whether he repeats his prayer-formulas with his lips, or like the Tibetan, uses a prayer-wheel … is quite indifferent. As the illusion of thinking that a man can justify himself before God in any way by acts of worship is religious superstition, so the illusion that he can obtain this justification by the so-called intercourse with God is religious mysticism (Schwärmerei). Such superstition leads inevitably to sacerdotalism (Pfaffenthum) which will always be found where the essence is sought not in principles of morality, but in statutory commandments, rules of faith and observances.

Black Elk photo

“I was very sad; for it seemed to me that everybody ought to know about it, but I was afraid to tell, because I knew that nobody would believe me, little as I was, for I was only nine years old. Also, as I lay there thinking of my vision, I could see it all again and feel the meaning with a part of me like a strange power glowing in my body; but when the part of me that talks would try to make words for the meaning, it would be like fog and get away from me.”

Black Elk (1863–1950) Oglala Lakota leader

Black Elk Speaks (1961)
Context: They told me I had been sick twelve days, lying like dead all the while, and that Whirlwind Chaser, who was Standing Bear's uncle and a medicine man, had brought me back to life. I knew it was the Grandfathers in the Flaming Rainbow Tepee who had cured me; but I felt afraid to say so. My father gave Whirlwind Chaser the best horse he had for making me well, and many people came to look at me, and there was much talk about the great power of Whirlwind Chaser who had made me well all at once when I was almost the same as dead.
Everybody was glad that I was living; but as I lay there thinking about the wonderful place where I had been and all that I had seen, I was very sad; for it seemed to me that everybody ought to know about it, but I was afraid to tell, because I knew that nobody would believe me, little as I was, for I was only nine years old. Also, as I lay there thinking of my vision, I could see it all again and feel the meaning with a part of me like a strange power glowing in my body; but when the part of me that talks would try to make words for the meaning, it would be like fog and get away from me.
I am sure now that I was then too young to understand it all, and that I only felt it. It was the pictures I remembered and the words that went with them; for nothing I have ever seen with my eyes was so clear and bright as what my vision showed me; and no words that I have ever heard with my ears were like the words I heard. I did not have to remember these things; they have remembered themselves all these years. It was as I grew older that the meanings came clearer and clearer out of the pictures and the words; and even now I know that more was shown to me than I can tell.

Jocelyn Bell Burnell photo

“Sometimes you discover the picture you thought you had, that everybody thought we had, actually turns out to be wrong.”

Jocelyn Bell Burnell (1943) British scientist

Beautiful Minds (2010)
Context: Science doesn't always go forwards. It's a bit like doing a Rubik's cube. You sometimes have to make more of a mess with a Rubik's cube before you can get it to go right. You build up this picture of what there is and you believe it to be true and you work with this picture and you refine it but sometimes you have to abandon the picture. Sometimes you discover the picture you thought you had, that everybody thought we had, actually turns out to be wrong.

Charles Bukowski photo

“Not everybody thought they could be a dentist or an automobile mechanic but everybody knew they could be a writer.”

Source: Factotum (1975), Ch. 73
Context: There were always men looking for jobs in America. There were always all these usable bodies. And I wanted to be a writer. Almost everybody was a writer. Not everybody thought they could be a dentist or an automobile mechanic but everybody knew they could be a writer. Of those fifty guys in the room, probably fifteen of them thought they were writers. Almost everybody used words and could write them down, i. e., almost everybody could be a writer. But most men, fortunately, aren't writers, or even cab drivers, and some men - many men - unfortunately aren't anything.

Abraham Lincoln photo

“I don't believe in a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good. So while we do not propose any war upon capital, we do wish to allow the humblest man an equal chance to get rich with everybody else. When one starts poor, as most do in the race of life, free society is such that he knows he can better his condition; he knows that there is no fixed condition of labor, for his whole life.”

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

1860s, Allow the humblest man an equal chance (1860)
Context: One of the reasons why I am opposed to Slavery is just here. What is the true condition of the laborer? I take it that it is best for all to leave each man free to acquire property as fast as he can. Some will get wealthy. I don't believe in a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good. So while we do not propose any war upon capital, we do wish to allow the humblest man an equal chance to get rich with everybody else. When one starts poor, as most do in the race of life, free society is such that he knows he can better his condition; he knows that there is no fixed condition of labor, for his whole life. I am not ashamed to confess that twenty five years ago I was a hired laborer, mauling rails, at work on a flat-boat — just what might happen to any poor man's son! I want every man to have the chance — and I believe a black man is entitled to it — in which he can better his condition — when he may look forward and hope to be a hired laborer this year and the next, work for himself afterward, and finally to hire men to work for him! That is the true system.

U.G. Krishnamurti photo

“If nature had been allowed to go on in its own way, everybody would have become a unique flower. Why should there be only roses in this world?”

U.G. Krishnamurti (1918–2007) Indian philosopher

Part 4: Betwixt Bewilderment and Understanding
The Mystique of Enlightenment (1982)
Context: I have one thing against medical technology. You see, the very desire to understand the human being is to control him — that is why I am not quite in sympathy. The day you control the endocrine glands, you will change the personality of man; you won't need any brainwashing. Brainwashing is a very elaborate process. If nature had been allowed to go on in its own way, everybody would have become a unique flower. Why should there be only roses in this world? What for? A grass flower or a dandelion flower has as much beauty, as much importance in the scheme of things. Why should there be only jasmine flowers, roses, or some other flower? So, the possibility is there of a change taking place which is sudden, not progressive. It has to happen in a very sudden and explosive way to break the whole thing.

Barack Obama photo

“I believe that every person should be equal under the law. Every child deserves the dignity that comes with education, and health care and food on the table and a roof over their heads. I believe citizens should be free to speak their mind without fear to organize, and to criticize their government, and to protest peacefully, and that the rule of law should not include arbitrary detentions of people who exercise those rights. I believe that every person should have the freedom to practice their faith peacefully and publicly. And, yes, I believe voters should be able to choose their governments in free and democratic elections. Not everybody agrees with me on this.”

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

2016, Remarks to the People of Cuba (March 2016)
Context: I believe that every person should be equal under the law. Every child deserves the dignity that comes with education, and health care and food on the table and a roof over their heads. I believe citizens should be free to speak their mind without fear to organize, and to criticize their government, and to protest peacefully, and that the rule of law should not include arbitrary detentions of people who exercise those rights. I believe that every person should have the freedom to practice their faith peacefully and publicly. And, yes, I believe voters should be able to choose their governments in free and democratic elections. Not everybody agrees with me on this. Not everybody agrees with the American people on this. But I believe those human rights are universal. I believe they are the rights of the American people, the Cuban people, and people around the world.

P. J. O'Rourke photo

“Everybody wants to save the earth; nobody wants to help Mom do the dishes.”

P. J. O'Rourke (1947) American journalist

All the Trouble in the World (1994)

David Ben-Gurion photo

“Everybody sees a difficulty in the question of relations between Arabs and Jews. But not everybody sees that there is no solution to this question.”

David Ben-Gurion (1886–1973) Israeli politician, Zionist leader, prime minister of Israel

Written statement (June 1919), as quoted in Time magazine (24 July 2006)
Context: Everybody sees a difficulty in the question of relations between Arabs and Jews. But not everybody sees that there is no solution to this question. No solution! There is a gulf, and nothing can bridge it… We, as a nation, want this country to be ours; the Arabs, as a nation, want this country to be theirs.

Henri Barbusse photo

“I came and went in the midst of the naked truth. I am not a man of peculiar and exceptional traits. I recognise myself in everybody. I have the same desires, the same longings as the ordinary human being.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

The Inferno (1917), Ch. XVI
Context: Turn where you will, everywhere, the man and the woman ever confronting each other, the man who loves a hundred times, the woman who has the power to love so much and to forget so much. I went on my way again. I came and went in the midst of the naked truth. I am not a man of peculiar and exceptional traits. I recognise myself in everybody. I have the same desires, the same longings as the ordinary human being. Like everybody else I am a copy of the truth spelled out in the Room, which is, "I am alone and I want what I have not and what I shall never have." It is by this need that people live, and by this need that people die.

Maxim Gorky photo

“Some one has to be kind, girl — some one has to pity people! Christ pitied everybody — and he said to us: "Go and do likewise!" I tell you — if you pity a man when he most needs it, good comes of it.”

Maxim Gorky (1868–1936) Russian and Soviet writer

The character "Luka" in The Lower Depths (1902) English translation by Laurence Irving (1912)
Context: Some one has to be kind, girl — some one has to pity people! Christ pitied everybody — and he said to us: "Go and do likewise!" I tell you — if you pity a man when he most needs it, good comes of it. Why — I used to be a watchman on the estate of an engineer near Tomsk — all right — the house was right in the middle of a forest — lonely place — winter came — and I remained all by myself. Well — one night I heard a noise — thieves creeping in! I took my gun — I went out. I looked and saw two of them opening a window — and so busy that they didn't even see me. I yell: "Hey there — get out of here!" And they turn on me with their axes — I warn them to stand back, or I'd shoot — and as I speak, I keep on covering them with my gun, first on the one, then the other — they go down on their knees, as if to implore me for mercy. And by that time I was furious — because of those axes, you see — and so I say to them: "I was chasing you, you scoundrels — and you didn't go. Now you go and break off some stout branches!" — and they did so — and I say: "Now — one of you lie down and let the other one flog him!" So they obey me and flog each other — and then they began to implore me again. "Grandfather," they say, "for God's sake give us some bread! We're hungry!" There's thieves for you, my dear! [Laughs. ] And with an ax, too! Yes — honest peasants, both of them! And I say to them, "You should have asked for bread straight away!" And they say: "We got tired of asking — you beg and beg — and nobody gives you a crumb — it hurts!" So they stayed with me all that winter — one of them, Stepan, would take my gun and go shooting in the forest — and the other, Yakoff, was ill most of the time — he coughed a lot... and so the three of us together looked after the house... then spring came... "Good-bye, grandfather," they said — and they went away — back home to Russia... escaped convicts — from a Siberian prison camp... honest peasants! If I hadn't felt sorry for them — they might have killed me — or maybe worse — and then there would have been a trial and prison and afterwards Siberia — what's the sense of it? Prison teaches no good — and Siberia doesn't either — but another human being can... yes, a human being can teach another one kindness — very simply!

Colette photo

“Sometimes in my very happiest moments, I feel like crying. My eyes grow dim, my heart seems to choke me. I would like to be sure, in such times of anguish, that everybody loves me; that there is nowhere in the world a sad dog behind a closed door, that no evil will ever come…”

Colette (1873–1954) 1873-1954 French novelist: wrote Gigi

Barks and Purrs
Context: Toby-Dog: It seems to me that of the two of us it's you they make the most of, and yet you do all the grumbling.
Kiki-The-Demure: A dog's logic, that! The more one gives the more I demand.
Toby-Dog: That's wrong. It's indiscreet.
Kiki-The-Demure: Not at all. I have a right to everything.
Toby-Dog: To everything? And I?
Kiki-The-Demure: I don't imagine you lack anything, do you?
Toby-Dog: Ah, I don't know. Sometimes in my very happiest moments, I feel like crying. My eyes grow dim, my heart seems to choke me. I would like to be sure, in such times of anguish, that everybody loves me; that there is nowhere in the world a sad dog behind a closed door, that no evil will ever come...
Kiki-The-Demure: And then what dreadful thing happens?
Toby-Dog: You know very well! Inevitably, at that moment She appears, carrying a bottle with horrible yellow stuff floating in it — Castor Oil!

John Lennon photo

“I don't mind people putting us down, because if everybody really liked us, it would be a bore.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Source: The Beatles Anthology (2000), p. 120
Context: I don't mind people putting us down, because if everybody really liked us, it would be a bore. You've got to have people putting you down. It doesn't give any edge to it if everybody just falls flat on their face saying, "You're great." We enjoy some of the criticisms as well, they're quite funny; some of the clever criticisms, not the ones that don't know anything, but some of the clever ones are quite fun.

John Lennon photo

“It just came to me. Everybody was going on about karma, especially in the Sixties. But it occurred to me that karma is instant as well as it influences your past life or your future life.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

On his song "Instant Karma!", prompted by the use of the phrase "Instant Karma" by Melinde Kendall, the wife of Yoko Ono's former husband Tony Cox, as quoted in All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono (2000) by David Sheff
Playboy interview (1980)
Context: It just came to me. Everybody was going on about karma, especially in the Sixties. But it occurred to me that karma is instant as well as it influences your past life or your future life. There really is a reaction to what you do now. That's what people ought to be concerned about. Also, I'm fascinated by commercials and promotion as an art form. I enjoy them. So the idea of instant karma was like the idea of instant coffee: presenting something in a new form. I just liked it.

Malcolm X photo
Samuel Goldwyn photo
Joe Louis photo
Jacque Fresco photo
Barack Obama photo
David Foster Wallace photo

“If, by the virtue of charity or the circumstance of desperation, you ever chance to spend a little time around a Substance-recovery halfway facility like Enfield MA’s state-funded Ennet House, you will acquire many exotic new facts…That certain persons simply will not like you no matter what you do. That sleeping can be a form of emotional escape and can with sustained effort be abused. That purposeful sleep-deprivation can also be an abusable escape. That you do not have to like a person in order to learn from him/her/it. That loneliness is not a function of solitude. That logical validity is not a guarantee of truth. That it takes effort to pay attention to any one stimulus for more than a few seconds. That boring activities become, perversely, much less boring if you concentrate intently on them. That if enough people in a silent room are drinking coffee it is possible to make out the sound of steam coming off the coffee. That sometimes human beings have to just sit in one place and, like, hurt. That you will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do. That there is such a thing as raw, unalloyed, agendaless kindness. That it is possible to fall asleep during an anxiety attack. That concentrating intently on anything is very hard work. That 99% of compulsive thinkers’ thinking is about themselves; that 99% of this self-directed thinking consists of imagining and then getting ready for things that are going to happen to them; and then, weirdly, that if they stop to think about it, that 100% of the things they spend 99% of their time and energy imagining and trying to prepare for all the contingencies and consequences of are never good. In short that 99% of the head’s thinking activity consists of trying to scare the everliving shit out of itself. That it is possible to make rather tasty poached eggs in a microwave oven. That some people’s moms never taught them to cover up or turn away when they sneeze. That the people to be the most frightened of are the people who are the most frightened. That it takes great personal courage to let yourself appear weak. That no single, individual moment is in and of itself unendurable. That other people can often see things about you that you yourself cannot see, even if those people are stupid. That having a lot of money does not immunize people from suffering or fear. That trying to dance sober is a whole different kettle of fish. That different people have radically different ideas of basic personal hygiene. That, perversely, it is often more fun to want something than to have it. That if you do something nice for somebody in secret, anonymously, without letting the person you did it for know it was you or anybody else know what it was you did or in any way or form trying to get credit for it, it’s almost its own form of intoxicating buzz. That anonymous generosity, too, can be abused. That it is permissible to want. That everybody is identical in their unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else. That this isn’t necessarily perverse. That there might not be angels, but there are people who might as well be angels.”

Infinite Jest (1996)

Jawaharlal Nehru photo
Lady Gaga photo

“Everybody wants me to show my vagina to the world. And the truth is, I don’t have to.”

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

Interview for Maxim Magazine.

James Baldwin photo
Morrissey photo
Tupac Shakur photo

“What I want you to take seriously, is what we have to do for the youth. Because we're coming up in a totally different world. This is not the same world that you had this is not 6th Street its not. You grew up, we grew up B. C. Before crack. That's just saying it all. You understand? We did not grow up without parents. You had parents that told you this and that and told you what went on back in the day. You have young kids, fourteen, coming home and their mama is smoking out, going to their best friend to get the product. You understand what I'm saying? So that means it's not just about you taking care of "your" child. It's about you taking care of "these children". It hurts that I got to, it bothers me, not hurts, that I have to sidestep my youth to stand up and do some shit that somebody else is suppose to be doing. You understand what I'm saying? There's too many men out here for me to be doing this, because it ain't my turn yet. I'm supposed to be following behind him getting the knowledge. I don't even got a chance to get the fucking knowledge. I can't go to college. There's too much problems out here. I don't got the money. Nobody does. You understand what I'm saying? So what I'm saying is, it's not as easy as we're mapping it out to be. We've got to stay real. Before we can be new African we've gotta be black first. You understand? We've gotta get our brothers from the streets like Harriett Tubman did. Why can't we look at that and see exactly what she was doing? Like Malcolm did, the real Malcolm, before the Nation of Islam. You've got to remember, this was a pimp. You know what I'm saying, we forgot about all that. In our strive to be enlightened we forgot about all our brothers in the street, about all our dope dealers, our pushers and our pimps, and that's who's teaching the new generation, because y'all not doing it. I'm sorry. But, it's the pimps and pushers who's teaching us. So, if you got a problem with how we were raised, its because they was the only ones who could do it. They the only ones who did it, because everybody else wanted to go to college, and you know, yeah everything's changed, they were the ones telling you 'the white man ain't shit, there you go, check this out young blood, you take this product, you switch it, you get money and that's how you beat the white man, you get money, you get the hell up out of here.'”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

Nobody else did that. So I don't wanna hear shit about nobody telling me who I can't love and respect until you start doing what they did. To me, this is Mecca. This is the black family. You know what I'm saying? But, what makes it that much sadder, what makes me wanna cry, is that when I leave this place, so does Mecca. You understand what I'm saying? We're going back to the real deal. Right out there, you're going see the same sisters and Brenda, they're right out there, and y'all are going to get in your cars and drive the fuck home.
1990s, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Atlanta (1992)

Tupac Shakur photo
Jeremy Bentham photo
Gore Vidal photo
Abraham Lincoln photo
Kanye West photo

“You tried to play nice, everybody just took advantage
You left your fridge open, somebody just took a sandwich.”

Kanye West (1977) American rapper, singer and songwriter

Wolves
Lyrics, The Life of Pablo (2016)