“Today the writer has to be on the ground, because it is on the ground where he is needed most.”
José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor
Source: https://www.peruinforma.com/entrevista-cultural-al-escritor-chileno-jose-baroja/
A collection of quotes on the topic of most, people, use, doing.
“Today the writer has to be on the ground, because it is on the ground where he is needed most.”
José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor
Source: https://www.peruinforma.com/entrevista-cultural-al-escritor-chileno-jose-baroja/
José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor
Original: Para qué andar con medias tintas, los animales saben mucho más que las personas, ante todo porque sienten con más libertad que la mayoría de estas y, por ello, como dice Kafka, son poseedores de todo el conocimiento acerca de esta vida. Solo que son muy humildes para hacer gala de ello.
Source: Baroja, José. (2020). "Orfeo". En El lado oscuro de la sombra y otros ladridos. Lima: Ediquid, ISBN:978-980-7641-67-8; p. 40.
Yuzuru Hanyu (1994) Japanese figure skater (1994-)
Page: 165.
Blue Flame
Original: (ja) 今はとにかく、一日一日を大事にしたいと思う。何気ない日常の一日一日、アイスショーの日々、練習の日々、試合の日々をすべて大切にしたい。そんなことを、あの日を境により強く感じるようになりました。
Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician
Variant: You may not be her first, her last, or her only. She loved before she may love again. But if she loves you now, what else matters? She's not perfect — you aren't either, and the two of you may never be perfect together but if she can make you laugh, cause you to think twice, and admit to being human and making mistakes, hold onto her and give her the most you can. She may not be thinking about you every second of the day, but she will give you a part of her that she knows you can break — her heart. So don't hurt her, don't change her, don't analyze and don't expect more than she can give. Smile when she makes you happy, let her know when she makes you mad, and miss her when she's not there.
Robert Baden-Powell (1857–1941) lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer, founder and Chief Scout of the Scout Movement
Marek Żukow-Karczewski (1961) Polish historian, journalist and opinion journalist
Krzyżtopór - lordly fortress belonging to the Ossoliński family at Ujazd, "Aura" 7, 1989-07, p. 20-22. http://yadda.icm.edu.pl/yadda/element/bwmeta1.element.agro-10431a86-d55f-41c2-a32b-a56f6d26570e?q=fb98c219-0d8f-4b9e-88ea-9c0f94821cd5$5&qt=IN_PAGE
Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer
On listening to an early version of Billie Jean on an iPhone
Ebony interview (2007)
Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer
"The Meaning of Life: The Big Picture", Life Magazine (December 1988)
Interviews
“The most worth-while thing is to try to put happiness into the lives of others.”
Robert Baden-Powell (1857–1941) lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer, founder and Chief Scout of the Scout Movement
Letter (September 1940)
Ernest Hemingway book Men Without Women
Disputed <br class="br">Source: Claimed to be from Men Without Women, but it does not appear in that work. May have originated in a 2011 blogpost by Marc Chernoff entitled 30 things to stop doing to yourself http://www.marcandangel.com/2011/12/11/30-things-to-stop-doing-to-yourself/.
“My own soul is my most faithful friend. My own heart, my truest confidant.”
Babur (1483–1530) 1st Mughal Emperor
"History of India" at Amazing World http://www.amworld.info/india-travel/history-of-india
Harry Styles (1994) English singer, songwriter, and actor
In conversation with Timothée Chalamet for i-D Magazine (2 November 2018) https://i-d.vice.com/en_uk/article/evwwma/harry-styles-interviews-timothee-chalamet-photos
“Out of everything I've lost, I miss my mind the most!”
Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter
Friedrich Nietzsche book Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Variant: The real man wants two different things: danger and play. Therefore he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything.
Source: Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Freddie Mercury (1946–1991) British singer, songwriter and record producer
As quoted in "Queen's Freddie Mercury Shopping For An Image In London" by Scott Cohen in Circus Magazine (April 1975).
Freddie Mercury (1946–1991) British singer, songwriter and record producer
As quoted in "Rock On Freddie" (1985) http://www.queenarchives.com/index.php?title=Freddie_Mercury_-_XX-XX-1985_-_Unknown.
Jacques-Yves Cousteau (1910–1997) French naval officer, explorer, conservationist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and …
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) Austrian Romantic composer
As spoken to Michael Kelly, from Reminiscences of Michael Kelly, of the King's Theatre, and Theatre Royal Drury Lane, including a period of nearly half a century; with Original Anecdotes of many distinguished Personnages, Political, Literary, and Musical (London, Henry Colburn, 1826; digitized 2006), 2nd ed., vol. I (p. 225) http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC00439352&id=ph3XEMzGt5YC&pg=RA2-PA225&lpg=RA2-PA225&dq=%22Melody+is+the+essence+of+music%22&hl=en
“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
Oscar Wilde book The Soul of Man under Socialism
The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)
Context: With the abolition of private property, then, we shall have true, beautiful, healthy Individualism. Nobody will waste his life in accumulating things, and the symbols for things. One will live. To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.
Freddie Mercury (1946–1991) British singer, songwriter and record producer
As quoted in "I am the Champion" by Nick Ferrari in The Sun (19 July 1985) http://www.queenarchives.com/index.php?title=Freddie_Mercury_-_07-19-1985_-_The_Sun.
Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher
Os sentimentos que mais doem, as emoções que mais pungem, são os que são absurdos – a ânsia de coisas impossíveis, precisamente porque são impossíveis, a saudade do que nunca houve, o desejo do que poderia ter sido, a mágoa de não ser outro, a insatisfação da existência do mundo. Todos estes meios tons da consciencia da alma criam em nós uma paisagem dolorida, um eterno sol-pôr do que somos.
The Book of Disquietude, trans. Richard Zenith, text 196
Marie Curie (1867–1934) French-Polish physicist and chemist
Pierre Curie (1923), as translated by Charlotte Kellogg and Vernon Lyman Kellogg, p. 168
Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister
Dated 27 March 1942
Diary excerpts
Raphael (1483–1520) Italian painter and architect
Quote from a letter of Raphael Sanzio to pope Leo X (c. 1519); Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich, cod. it. 37b; translated as 'The Letter to Leo X by Raphael and Baldassare Castiglione, c.1519', by Vaughan Hart and Peter Hicks, Palladio's Rome: A Translation of Andrea Palladio's Two Guidebooks to Rome; Yale University Press, New Haven, 2006, pp. 179-92
Jacque Fresco (1916–2017) American futurist and self-described social engineer
You'd rot away in a month if every organ of your body went out for itself. <br class="br"> 1974 Larry King Interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVOPkGAtt48
“The most terrible iron is not missiles, aircraft, and tanks, but shackles.”
Volodymyr Zelensky (1978) 6th President of Ukraine
Source: https://twitter.com/kyivindependent/status/1562384096130736128
“What is most personal is most universal.”
Carl R. Rogers (1902–1987) American psychologist
Source: On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy
William Shakespeare Julius Caesar
Variant: Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.
Source: Julius Caesar
Sadhguru book Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy
Source: Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy
“Life itself is the most wonderful fairy tale.”
Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) Danish author, fairy tale writer, and poet
Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist
Variant: The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.
Variant: The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen, nor touched... but are felt in the heart.
“Rape is one of the most terrible crimes on earth. And it happens every few minutes.”
Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist
As quoted in New Musical Express (1991-11-23).
Interviews (1989-1994), Print
Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist
As quoted in Howl (1993-07-22).
Interviews (1989-1994), Print
Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor
Address at the Belgrade train station (1 June 1892)
Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer
Handwritten note published in People (12 October 1987)
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (1945) Brazilian politician, 35th president of Brazil
" Brazil rejects Bush move on climate change talks http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jun/04/brazil.usa" in: The Guardian, May 31, 2007.
“Poetry, it's one of the most pretty nicknames we give to life.”
Jacques Prevért (1900–1977) French poet, screenwriter
Attributed
Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) Italian mathematician, physicist, philosopher and astronomer
Author, Third Day. Change of Position<!--p.153 [190]-->
Dialogues and Mathematical Demonstrations Concerning Two New Sciences (1638)
Context: It has been observed that missiles and projectiles describe a curved path of some sort; however no one has pointed out the fact that this path is a parabola. But this and other facts, not few in number or less worth knowing, I have succeeded in proving; and what I consider more important, there have been opened up to this vast and most excellent science, of which my work is merely the beginning, ways and means by which other minds more acute than mine will explore its remote corners.
Erwin Rommel (1891–1944) German field marshal of World War II
Source: The Rommel Papers (1953), Ch. XI : The Initiative Passes, p. 262.[[Courage which goes against military expediency is stupidity, or, if it is insisted upon by a commander, irresponsibility.]]
Context: The Italian command was, for the most part, not equal to the task of carrying on war in the desert, where the requirement was lightning decision followed by immediate action. The training of the Italian infantryman fell far short of the standard required by modern warfare. … Particularly harmful was the all pervading differentiation between officer and man. While the men had to make shift without field-kitchens, the officers, or many of them, refused adamantly to forgo their several course meals. Many officers, again, considered it unnecessary to put in an appearance during battle and thus set the men an example. All in all, therefore, it was small wonder that the Italian soldier, who incidentally was extraordinarily modest in his needs, developed a feeling of inferiority which accounted for his occasional failure and moments of crisis. There was no foreseeable hope of a change for the better in any of these matters, although many of the bigger men among the Italian officers were making sincere efforts in that direction.
Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985), First Inaugural address (1981)
Context: To a few of us here today this is a solemn and most momentous occasion, and yet in the history of our nation it is a commonplace occurrence. The orderly transfer of authority as called for in the Constitution routinely takes place, as it has for almost two centuries, and few of us stop to think how unique we really are. In the eyes of many in the world, this every-four-year ceremony we accept as normal is nothing less than a miracle.
Robert Greene (1959) American author
Chap. 8 : Change Your Circumstances by Changing Your Attitude
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)
Jacque Fresco (1916–2017) American futurist and self-described social engineer
Designing the Future (2007)
George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist
This is often attributed to George Orwell book 1984. We cannot find it inside. Perharps this is post-mortem paraphrase of his quote "Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past".
Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet
Attributed without citation in Ken Robinson, The Element (2009), p. 260. Widely attributed to Michelangelo since the late 1990s, this adage has not been found before 1980 when it appeared without attribution in E. C. McKenzie, Mac's giant book of quips & quotes.
Disputed
Variant: The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.
“The most revolutionary thing one can do is always to proclaim loudly what is happening.”
Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919) Polish Marxist theorist, socialist philosopher, and revolutionary
Source: The Rosa Luxemburg Reader
“Thinking is difficult, that’s why most people judge.”
C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology
Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution
Source: The State and Revolution (1917), Ch. 5
Context: Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich – that is the democracy of capitalist society. If we look more closely into the machinery of capitalist democracy, we see everywhere, in the "petty" – supposedly petty – details of the suffrage (residential qualifications, exclusion of women, etc.), in the technique of the representative institutions, in the actual obstacles to the right of assembly (public buildings are not for "paupers"!), in the purely capitalist organization of the daily press, etc., etc., – we see restriction after restriction upon democracy. These restrictions, exceptions, exclusions, obstacles for the poor seem slight, especially in the eyes of one who has never known want himself and has never been in close contact with the oppressed classes in their mass life (and nine out of 10, if not 99 out of 100, bourgeois publicists and politicians come under this category); but in their sum total these restrictions exclude and squeeze out the poor from politics, from active participation in democracy.
Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)
Ram Dass (1931–2019) American contemporary spiritual teacher and the author of the 1971 book Be Here Now
“The most thought-provoking thing in our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking.”
Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) German philosopher
Das Bedenklichste in unserer bedenklichen Zeit ist, dass wir noch nicht denken.
What is Called Thinking? [Was heisst Denken?] (1951–1952), as translated by Fred D. Wieck and J. Glenn Gray (1968)
Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary
5 April 1944
The Diary of a Young Girl (1942 - 1944)
Variant: I need to have something besides a husband and children to devote myself to! I don't want to have lived in vain like most people. I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I've never met.
“The greatest victory in life is to rise above the material things that we once valued most.”
Muhammad Ali book The Soul of a Butterfly
Source: The Soul of a Butterfly: Reflections on Life's Journey
Dilma Rousseff (1947) 36th President of Brazil
First speech http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/01/dilma-rousseff-wins-brazil-president after being elected President, October 31. <br class="br">2010
Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179) Medieval saint, prophetise, mystic and Doctor of Church
"O gloriosissimi"
Elliot Rodger (1991–2014) American spree killer
My Twisted World (2014), Thoughts at 14
Max Planck (1858–1947) German theoretical physicist
Where is science going? The Universe in the light of modern physics. (1932)