“I like the moment when I break a man's ego”
Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) American chess prodigy, chess player, and chess writer
Quotes about likeness page 6
“The more i get to know people, the more i like dogs.”
Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) German poet, journalist, essayist, and literary critic
“I don't like that man. I must get to know him better.”
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
As quoted in "Wisdom of a forefather" https://web.archive.org/web/20100716212616/http://www.today.colostate.edu/story.aspx?id=546 (11 February 2009), Colorado State University. <br class="br">Posthumous attributions
“I like to reinvent myself — it’s part of my job.”
Karl Lagerfeld (1933–2019) German fashion designer
“To judge a man by his weakest link or deed is like judging the power of the ocean by one wave.”
Elvis Presley (1935–1977) American singer and actor
Handwriten message on Elvis' King James -Bible
Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War
"The Coalmining Situation", Speech to the House of Commons (October 13, 1943) <br class="br">The Second World War (1939–1945) <br class="br">Source: Google books link https://books.google.com/books?id=hc8pAAAAQBAJ&pg=PT373&lpg=PT373&dq=%22if+anyone+says+anything+back+that+is+an+outrage%22&source=bl&ots=vQG7eKCVNO&sig=FgGJGUVc7MSNY3-hyQrYpC8tiOY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CFEQ6AEwDWoVChMI-J-rpoiWyQIVF9tjCh2cLAel#v=onepage&q=%22if%20anyone%20says%20anything%20back%20that%20is%20an%20outrage%22&f=false
“What I do I do because I like to do.”
Anthony Burgess book A Clockwork Orange
Variant: But what I do I do because I like to do.
Source: A Clockwork Orange
“The moon like a flower
In heaven's high bower,
With silent delight,
Sits and smiles on the night.”
Night, st. 1
1780s, Songs of Innocence (1789–1790)
“I like people too much or not at all.”
Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer
Haruki Murakami book South of the Border, West of the Sun
Source: South of the Border, West of the Sun
Karen Blixen book Out of Africa
Source: Out of Africa (1937)
Context: People who dream when they sleep at night know of a special kind of happiness which the world of the day holds not, a placid ecstasy, and ease of heart, that are like honey on the tongue. They also know that the real glory of dreams lies in their atmosphere of unlimited freedom. It is not the freedom of the dictator, who enforces his own will on the world, but the freedom of the artist, who has no will, who is free of will. The pleasure of the true dreamer does not lie in the substance of the dream, but in this: that there things happen without any interference from his side, and altogether outside his control. Great landscapes create themselves, long splendid views, rich and delicate colours, roads, houses, which he has never seen or heard of...
“Never love anyone who treats you like you're ordinary.”
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet
"Lady Lazarus" http://www.angelfire.com/tn/plath/lady.html <br class="br">Source: Ariel (1965)
Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution
Source: The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution
“There's nothin like a trail of ßlooÐ to finÐ your way ßack home”
Nikki Sixx book The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star
Source: The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star
"Still I Rise" - Full text online at poets.org http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15623 <br class="br">And Still I Rise (1978)
“Few sons, indeed, are like their fathers.
Generally they are worse; but just a few are better.”
II. 276–277 (tr. E. V. Rieu).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)
Source: The Odyssey
Prologue
Source: All for Love (1678)
Context: Let those find fault whose wit's so very small,
They've need to show that they can think at all;
Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow;
He who would search for pearls, must dive below.
Fops may have leave to level all they can;
As pigmies would be glad to lop a man.
Half-wits are fleas; so little and so light,
We scarce could know they live, but that they bite.
Pauline Réage book Story of O
Source: Story of O
Italo Calvino book Invisible Cities
Page 44.
Source: Invisible Cities (1972)
Context: With cities, it is as with dreams: everything imaginable can be dreamed, but even the most unexpected dream is a rebus that conceals a desire or, its reverse, a fear. Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else.
Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880) French writer (1821–1880)
Correspondence, Letters to Mademoiselle Leroyer de Chantepie
Variant: Do not read as children do to enjoy themselves, or, as the ambitious do to educate themselves. No, read to live.
Context: Do not read as children do to enjoy themselves, or, as the ambitious do to educate themselves. No, read to live. (June 1857)
Frances Hodgson Burnett A Little Princess
Variant: She says it has nothing to do with what you look like, or what you have. It has only to do with what you think of, and what you do.
Source: A Little Princess
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977) Indian guru
Source: Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead
“Some people find fault like there is a reward for it”
Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American motivational speaker
Source: Zig Ziglar's Little Book of Quotes
“People like to invent monsters and monstrosities. Then they seem less monstrous themselves.”
Andrzej Sapkowski book The Last Wish
Geralt
Source: The Last Wish (1993)
Context: “People," Geralt turned his head, "like to invent monsters and monstrosities. Then they seem less monstrous themselves. When they get blind-drunk, cheat, steal, beat their wives, starve an old woman, when they kill a trapped fox with an axe or riddle the last existing unicorn with arrows, they like to think that the Bane entering cottages at daybreak is more monstrous than they are. They feel better then. They find it easier to live.”
“Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.”
Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist
Variant: Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer
Picasso quoted in 'TIME'; quoted in: The Atlantic, Vol. 214 (1964), p. 97.
Picasso commented on his ambiguous style, or use of multiple styles.
1960s
Henry David Thoreau book Walden ou la vie dans les bois
Source: Walden (1854)
Context: I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to "glorify God and enjoy him forever."
“Be a duck, remain calm on the surface and paddle like hell underneath.”
Michael Caine (1933) English actor and author
“I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.”
Jerome K. Jerome book Three Men in a Boat
Variant: I like work; it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.
Source: Three Men in a Boat (1889), Ch. 15.
Context: It always does seem to me that I am doing more work than I should do. It is not that I object to the work, mind you; I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours. I love to keep it by me: the idea of getting rid of it nearly breaks my heart.
“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman
Attributed to Cicero in J. M. Braude's Speaker's Desk Book of Quips, Quotes, & Anecdotes (Jaico Pub. House, 1966), p. 52. <br class="br">Dennis McHenry in a 2011 post at theCAMPVS.com http://thecampvs.com/2011/08/03/cicero-on-books-and-the-soul/ identified a source for the exact form of words in the essay "On the Pleasure of Reading" http://books.google.com/books?id=0YfQAAAAMAAJ&dq=cicero%20%22room%20without%20books%22%20%2B%22contemporary%20review%22&pg=PA240#v=onepage&q&f=false by Sir John Lubbock, published in The Contemporary Review, vol. 49 (1886) https://archive.org/details/contemporaryrev55unkngoog, pp. 240–51 https://archive.org/stream/contemporaryrev55unkngoog#page/n250/mode/2up, in which Lubbock wrote that "Cicero described a room without books as a body without a soul" (p. 241). The same sentence may also be found on p. 61 https://archive.org/stream/thepleasuresofli01lubbuoft#page/60/mode/2up of Lubbock's collection The Pleasures of Life. Part I. 18th edition (London and New York : Macmillan and Co. 1890) https://archive.org/details/thepleasuresofli01lubbuoft, in a lecture titled "A Song of Books". McHenry suggested that Lubbock may have had in mind the words "postea vero quam Tyrannio mihi libros disposuit mens addita videtur meis aedibus" at Cicero, Ad Atticum 4.8, which are translated by E. O. Winstedt on p. 293 https://archive.org/stream/letterstoatticus01ciceuoft#page/292/mode/2up of Cicero: Letters to Atticus I (London : William Heinemann, and New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons 1912) https://archive.org/details/letterstoatticus01ciceuoft "Since Tyrannio has arranged my books, the house seems to have acquired a soul", and by Evelyn Shuckburgh on p. 234 https://archive.org/stream/cu31924012541433#page/n283/mode/2up of The Letters of Cicero. Vol. I. B. C. 68–52 (London : George Bell and Sons 1908) https://archive.org/details/cu31924012541433 "Moreover, since Tyrannio has arranged my books for me, my house seems to have had a soul added to it" (although the Latin word " mens http://athirdway.com/glossa/?s=mens", rendered "soul" by both Winstedt and Shuckburgh, is more usually translated by the English "mind"). D. R. Shackleton Bailey in Cicero's Letters to Atticus (Harmondsworth : Penguin Books 1978), p. 162, translated "And now that Tyrannio has put my books straight, my house seems to have woken to life". <br class="br">Disputed <br class="br">Variant: Ut conclave sine libris ita corpus sine anima" A room without books is like a body without a soul
“Pride grows in the human heart like lard on a pig.”
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer
“There is no aphrodisiac like innocence.”
Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) French sociologist and philosopher
Source: 1980s, Cool Memories (1987, trans. 1990), Chapter 5
“Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. The hands can't hit what the eyes can't see.”
Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) African American boxer, philanthropist and activist
Variant: Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.
Source: Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times
“I don't have to agree with you to like you or respect you.”
Anthony Bourdain (1956–2018) Chef and food writer
“Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.”
Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist
Source: Stepping into Freedom: Rules of Monastic Practice for Novices
"Why I Write," Gangrel (Summer 1946)
George Orwell book Politics and the English Language
Source: Politics and the English Language (1946)
“You like every one; that is to say, you are indifferent to every one.”
Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
“Your love is like the wind… you cant see it, but you can feel it…”
Nicholas Sparks book A Walk to Remember
Variant: Love is like the wind, you can't see it but you can feel it.
Source: A Walk to Remember
“I like this place and could willingly waste my time in it.”
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet
“The powers of the mind are like the rays of the sun when they are concentrated they illumine.”
Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher
Pearls of Wisdom
“Women are like tea bags. You never know how strong they are until you put them in hot water.”
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States
Another quote often attributed to her without an original source in her writings, as in The Wit and Wisdom of Eleanor Roosevelt (1996), p. 199. But once again archivists have not been able to find the quote in any of her writings, see the comment from Ralph Keyes in The Quote Verifier above.
A very similar remark was attributed to Nancy Reagan, in The Observer (29 March 1981): "A woman is like a teabag — only in hot water do you realize how strong she is."
Variants:
A woman is like a teabag. You never know how strong she is until she gets into hot water.
A woman is like a tea bag, you can not tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.
A woman is like a tea bag; you can't tell how strong she is and how much to trust her until you put her in hot water.
Disputed
“If I'm going to sing like someone else, then I don't need to sing at all.”
Billie Holiday (1915–1959) American jazz singer and songwriter
B.K.S. Iyengar (1918–2014) Indian yoga teacher and scholar
Source: Light on Life: The Yoga Journey to Wholeness, Inner Peace, and Ultimate Freedom, p. 59-60
Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005), p. 224
“I am tired of myself tonight. I should like to be somebody else.”
Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author
July 1890, page 313
(From Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, Second Series (1844) "Essay VI: Nature": "the trees are imperfect men, and seem to bemoan their imprisonment, rooted in the ground.")
John of the Mountains, 1938
Context: It has been said that trees are imperfect men, and seem to bemoan their imprisonment rooted in the ground. But they never seem so to me. I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do. They go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far!
“If you don't like the hand that fate's dealt you, fight for a new one.”
Masashi Kishimoto (1974) Japanese manga artist
“Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.”
Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer
Source: Ariel: The Restored Edition
“Good prose should be transparent, like a window pane.”
George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist
Max Lucado (1955) American clergyman and writer
Source: Every Day Deserves a Chance: Wake Up to the Gift of 24 Hours
“Heav'n has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn'd,
Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn'd.”
William Congreve The Mourning Bride
Act III, scene viii; often paraphrased: "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned". A similar line occurs in Love's Last Shift, by Colley Cibber, act iv.: "We shall find no fiend in hell can match the fury of a disappointed woman".
The Mourning Bride (1697)
Variant: Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned,
Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.
Context: Vile and ingrate! too late thou shalt repent
The base Injustice thou hast done my Love:
Yes, thou shalt know, spite of thy past Distress,
And all those Ills which thou so long hast mourn'd;
Heav'n has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn'd,
Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn'd.
“When people want to be liked for what they did, they should stop.”
Karl Lagerfeld (1933–2019) German fashion designer
“Falling in love is kind of like a form of socially acceptable insanity.”
Spike Jonze (1969) American director and actor
Source: her