Quotes about means
page 29

Jonathan Safran Foer photo
Julian Barnes photo
Rick Riordan photo

“She’s pretty,” Zethes mumbled. “I mean, she’s right.”

Source: The Lost Hero

David Levithan photo
María Amparo Ruiz de Burton photo
Susan Sontag photo

“Being in Love means being willing to ruin yourself for the other person.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

Source: As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980

James Madison photo

“Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors, must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives.”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

Letter to W.T. Barry http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch18s35.html (4 August 1822), in The Writings of James Madison (1910) edited by Gaillard Hunt, Vol. 9, p. 103; these words, using the older spelling "Governours", are inscribed to the left of the main entrance, Library of Congress James Madison Memorial Building.
1820s
Context: A popular Government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.

Jim Butcher photo
Nicholas Sparks photo
Rick Riordan photo
Richelle Mead photo
Brian Andreas photo
Margaret Atwood photo
T.S. Eliot photo
Ray Kurzweil photo
Confucius photo

“When a country is well governed, poverty and a mean condition are things to be ashamed of. When a country is ill governed, riches and honor are things to be ashamed of.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Source: The Analects, Chapter VIII

Bertolt Brecht photo

“When something seems ‘the most obvious thing in the world’ it means that any attempt to understand the world has been given up.”

Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) German poet, playwright, theatre director

Source: Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic

Philip K. Dick photo
Patricia C. Wrede photo
Lois Lowry photo

“Of course they needed to care. It was the meaning of everything.”

Source: The Giver

Ian McEwan photo
Suzanne Collins photo
Rick Riordan photo
Wayne W. Dyer photo
Toni Morrison photo

“In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.”

Toni Morrison (1931–2019) American writer

The Guardian (29 January 1992)

Cassandra Clare photo
Garth Nix photo
Edith Hamilton photo
Terry Goodkind photo
Scott Lynch photo
Jonathan Safran Foer photo
Richard Dawkins photo

“By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.”

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

The Enemies of Reason, "The Irrational Health Service" [1.02], 20 August 2007, timecode 00:13:05"ff"
The Enemies of Reason (August 2007)
Variant: We should be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brain falls out.

John Calvin photo
Jenny Han photo
Aldous Huxley photo
Leo Tolstoy photo

“I sit on a man's back, choking him, and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by any means possible, except getting off his back.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

Writings on Civil Disobedience and Nonviolence (1886)
Source: What Then Must We Do?

David Levithan photo
Tony Hoagland photo
David Bohm photo

“Culture is shared meaning. Suppose we were able to share meanings freely without a compulsive urge to impose our view or conform to those of others and without distortion and self-deception. Would this not constitute a real revolution in culture.”

David Bohm (1917–1992) American theoretical physicist

Changing Consciousness (1991)
Context: Culture is shared meaning. Suppose we were able to share meanings freely without a compulsive urge to impose our view or conform to those of others and without distortion and self-deception. Would this not constitute a real revolution in culture. <!-- p. 185

Richelle Mead photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Nikos Kazantzakis photo
Christopher Hitchens photo

“Nonintervention does not mean that nothing happens. It means that something else happens.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Source: The Quotable Hitchens from Alcohol to Zionism: The Very Best of Christopher Hitchens

David Levithan photo
David Levithan photo
Seamus Heaney photo
Sherrilyn Kenyon photo
Cormac McCarthy photo
Charles Bukowski photo
Ruth Ozeki photo
Chuck Palahniuk photo
Roland Barthes photo
James Patterson photo

“I mean, who cares about SpongeBob SquarePants? I'm sitting here with Wolverine!
-random kid talking to Ari”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: School's Out—Forever

William Faulkner photo
James Patterson photo
Paulo Coelho photo
Studs Terkel photo
Julia Quinn photo
Jim Morrison photo
Henry Adams photo

“No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.”

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)
Source: The Education of Henry Adams

“… talent means nothing, while experience, acquired in humility and with hard work, means everything.”

Patrick Süskind (1949) German writer and screenwriter

Source: Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

Raymond Chandler photo
Jane Austen photo
Albert Einstein photo
Mortimer J. Adler photo
Rebecca Stead photo
Frank Miller photo
Richelle Mead photo
Louisa May Alcott photo
Alice Walker photo
Rick Riordan photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Jodi Picoult photo
Aldous Huxley photo

“Successfully (whatever that may mean) or unsuccessfully, we all overact the part of our favorite character in fiction.”

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer

Source: The Doors of Perception & Heaven and Hell

Joan Didion photo
Rachel Cohn photo

“The handwriting was a girl’s. I mean, you can tell. That enchanted cursive.”

Rachel Cohn (1968) American writer

Source: Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

Christopher Moore photo

“Do we still have to floss?" Tommy asked. "I mean, what's the point of being immortal if we have to floss?”

Christopher Moore (1957) American writer of comic fantasy

Source: You Suck

“I doona need drugs. I am naturally a mean bastard.”

Kerrelyn Sparks (1955) American writer

Source: Be Still My Vampire Heart

Jon Krakauer photo
Charles Bukowski photo
Haruki Murakami photo
Isaac Asimov photo

“Weak emperors mean strong viceroys.”

Source: Foundation