Quotes about nobody
page 14

“Now, it's just occurred to me that we're missing something crucial. Ah, yes, an artist! Bugg, have we a court artist? We need an artist! Find us an artist! Nobody move!”

Steven Erikson book Dust of Dreams

Dust of Dreams (2009)

“Nobody knows about my man.
They think he's lost on some horizon.
And suddenly I find myself
Listening to a man I've never known before,
Telling me about the sea,
All his love, 'til Eternity.”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Source: Song lyrics, The Kick Inside (1978)

Love, Thinking, Sea

“From a high tower I have looked to the four points of the horizon.
I will go and lift up the dead on the battlefield.
I will stretch out their contorted arms and legs.
I will close their cold eyelids on their fixed pupils.
I cannot bear to see eyes if I do not receive any words.
Invisible life entrusts us with sad tasks,
I look back to my years, and the pains I have suffered
are not enough.
Soon there will be clashings of men and horrible clanging sounds.
And people hunted, pushed, wrenched.
Also I will find myself in the midst of the madness of war.
I will open pure words, orders of thought, fraternal acts.
In the meantime they will bring forward the man
condemned to death and they will tell him to dig his own grave.
He will look up at the still hills and the sky.
Some distant sounds of life will still reach him.
He will not have time to think back to his many days –
to the voices of his dear people, and the close relationships.
Not even will he be able to look ahead,
to come to terms with what is happening now.
And when the shots will be fired, with the flash a cry will go up
The human cry which is too late, and it’s lost.
To free, to free as soon as possible.
They will ask me: why don’t you come to fight with us?
They will not understand, they will carry on with the war.
I loved to be with other people, as the light of the day.
It is so good to work together, in trust, in mutual help.
To lose myself in the crowd in modest clothes.
In a circle of equals to listen and to speak.
And now nobody wants to listen, and yet they are all people.
I have become a stranger, the others do not know that I am there.
The abrupt reply, the friend who looks the other way.
It would be easy to join them in earnest action.
Forgetting the deeper unity, beyond the war?
I remain here, isolated from everybody,
working for a deeper togetherness.
Everything was only a trial, reality must yet begin.
Every being was partaking of another reality yet he did not know.
But now this reality is becoming clear,
and it matters only what opens us to it.”

Aldo Capitini (1899–1968) Italian philosopher and political activist

Love, Life, Death, Men

“We are not for Assad, neither for his opponents, We want to achieve the situation where the violence ends and there won’t be large-scale civil war. How many of peaceful people were killed by so-called militants? Did you count? There are also hundreds of victims. What is happening in Libya, in Iraq? Did they become safer? Where are they heading? Nobody has an answer.”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

Regarding a statement by Francois Hollande of "the need for Assad to leave". (June 1, 2012) http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-06-01/hollande-clashes-with-putin-over-ouster-of-syria-s-assad 2011 - 2015

War, People, Peace

“This is an excellent program. Nobody has said it has done a bad job. It is small. There are only about 50,000 visas a year. … As I ride my bike around New York City on the weekends, I see what immigrants do for America. This program has dramatically helped.”

Chuck Schumer (1950) U.S. Senator from the State of New York

Floor speech in the Senate https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4689088/schumer-visa-program (24 May 2006) celebrating the diversity visa program, as reported and quoted in "Schumer on Diversity Visa: 'This is an Excellent Program'" http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/11/01/schumer-champions-diversity-visa-excellent-program/ by Neil Munro, Breitbart.com (1 November 2017)

Help

“Somerset Maugham … wrote somewhere that "Nobody is any better than he ought to be." … I carried it along with me as a working philosophy, but I suppose that finally I would have to take exception to the thought … or else the universe is just an elaborate clock.”

Norman Mailer book Barbary Shore

Source: Barbary Shore (1951), Ch. 10

Universe

“Nobody’s going to go home for a year and come back. Nobody could ever enforce that. Nobody in their right mind would ever try to do it.”

Michael Bloomberg (1942) American businessman and politician, former mayor of New York City

http://www.gothamist.com/2007/05/29/bloombergs_memo.php
Illegal Immigration

Home

“Sex is all the enchantment required. Do men find women so enchanting once the sex is taken out? Does anyone find anyone that enchanting unless they have sexual business with them? Who else are you enchanted by? Nobody.”

Philip Roth book The Dying Animal

The Dying Animal (2001)

Women, Men, Sex, Business

“He stood with his back angled to the wall. To an indifferent observer he was simply in idle conversation, but it wasn't like that at all. This was an instinctive gesture of survival, being in constant readiness for an attack. His head didn't turn and his eyes didn't seem to move, but I knew he saw us. I could feel the hackles on the back of my neck stiffening and I knew he felt the same way.
Dog was meeting dog. Nobody knew it but the dogs and they weren't telling.
He was bigger than I thought. The suggestion of power I had seen in his photographs was for real. When he moved it was with the ponderous grace of some jungle animal, dangerously deceptive, because he could move a lot faster if he had to.
When we were ten feet away he pretended to see us for the first time and a wave of charm washed the cautious expression from his face and he stepped out to greet Dulcie with outstretched hand.
But it wasn't her he was seeing. It was me he was watching. I was one of his own kind. I couldn't be faked out and wasn't leashed by the proprieties of society. I could lash out and kill as fast as he could and of all the people in the room, I was the potential threat. I knew what he felt because I felt the same way myself.”

Mickey Spillane book The Body Lovers

The Body Lovers (1967)

People, Dogs, Way, Feeling

“I think it's called Arte Povera. But it doesn't mean 'poor art'. It means the art which you would do out there if you were nobody at all. Aspects of this are street art and so forth. Earthworks interest me to the single extent that it means a great extension of the possibilities of materials. Dirt is a wonderful material to make things out of. And mud and rocks and things like this…”

Carl Andre (1935) American artist

Source: Artists talks 1969 – 1977, p. 26

Art, Thinking

“He’s not that young, he’s turned twenty-three, and what makes him feel foolish among these people, he’s married. Nobody else here looks married. There is sure nobody else pregnant, that it shows. It makes him feel put on display, as a guy who didn’t know better.”

John Updike (1932–2009) American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic

Rabbit is Rich (1981)

People, Guy, Feeling

“If someone asks you where you get your characters… and they're sure to do that… you always say, "He's a combination of a lot of people I have known." That way, if your character is a damn fool, nobody will want to identify with him… To tell the truth, I don't know how a man gets a character for a story, anymore than I know how he falls in love. I don't know if his characters spring full-blown from his head, or if he sees a man walking down the street and recognises him instantly… I doubt any writer knows for sure where his characters come from.”

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author

Comment made to Novalyne Price. One Who Walked Alone by Novalyne Price Ellis, pp. 78-79
Other

Love, People, Truth, Fools

“Picasso and I said things to each other during those particular years [c. 1908 -1913] that nobody would any longer know how to say, that nobody would be able to understand any.... things that would be incomprehensible, and which gave us so much pleasure.”

Georges Braque (1882–1963) French painter and sculptor

Source: 1946 - 1963, Cahiers d'art', 1954, p. 14 - In: 'Braque, la peinture et nous'

Pleasure, Understanding

“Not counting you I've never had a heartache.
Not counting you I never have been blue.
There's no exceptions to the rule;
I've never been nobody's fool.
I've never lost at love not counting you.”

Garth Brooks (1962) American country music artist

Not Counting You.
Song lyrics, Garth Brooks (1989)

Love, Fools

“I would build a great wall, and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me, and I'll build them very inexpensively, I will build a great, great wall on our southern border. And I will have Mexico pay for that wall.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2015, Presidential Bid Announcement (June 16, 2015)

“In the beginning was the Word. Nobody knows what it actually was, although it would be nice to think that it was 'Sorry.”

Tom Holt (1961) British writer

c. 2
Ye Gods! (1992)

Thinking

“I have a dream that we can have one day, once again, a beautiful land. I have a dream that we can have a land of our own kind, in which the enemies of our people will cease to exist within our borders. I have a dream that one day, White people will be proud of themselves once again. When one day the value of race will be universally recognized, as it must be. When one day, it will be taught to keep your race pure, to ennoble and advance your race is the highest good in this world. I have dream that this current order will fall upon itself in misery, and the enemies of our people will be legally tried and convicted for their crimes. Those white people who have betrayed the interests of White people will be tried for treason, legally, through the process but will pay for their crimes. I have a dream in which the White House will one day become White once again, and not beige, and not black, and not putrid-colored green. I have a dream that we can have a land that we are proud of once again and not simply have platitudes to the American flag without having any kind of real basis behind it worthy of pride. I have a dream that one day, once again, we can be safe and secure in our homes, when one day our home will be our castle, once again, and nobody would ever dare even think about entering our home, to deprive us of what is rightfully ours.”

Matthew F. Hale (1971) White separatist religious leader

In Klassen We Trust (2002), Episode 5.

People, World, Beauty, Dreams

“To call these riots infantile and imbecilic is to give them a dignity they don't deserve. They can only be described as Islamic. Let me get this straight. We're supposed to show tolerance and respect for a religion that doesn't know the meaning of either word and goes out of its way to prove it every day? We're supposed to amend our values to accommodate a religion that accommodates nothing and nobody? Dream on, people. It's not going to happen, because with Islam it's always a one way street. We've learned that lesson the hard way. We can't afford any more tolerance and respect. We've been sucked dry. And we've become weary of manufactured Islamic grievance. It's such a bore that now when we hear some bearded buffoon or some bag-headed bimbo telling us how offended they are we can't even be bothered to laugh any more.”

Pat Condell (1949) Stand-up comedian, writer, and Internet personality

"A Word To Rioting Muslims" (20 September 2012) http://youtube.com/watch?v=GCXHPKhRCVg · transcript http://dotsub.com/view/72457cbc-fe18-4053-ae3f-6c7639cf4e79/viewTranscript/eng 2012

People, Religion, Dreams, Way

“Nobody had made this wilderness, and there was no evil in it and no good; it simply was.”

Ursula K. Le Guin book The Eye of the Heron

Source: The Eye of the Heron (1978), Chapter 11 (p. 162)

Evil

“I believe that during the intervention of NATO in Kosovo there is an element nobody can question: the air attacks, the bombs, are not caused by a material interest. Their character is exclusively humanitarian: What is at stake here are the principles, human rights which have priority above state sovereignty. This makes it legitimate to attack the Yugoslav Federation, although without the United Nations mandate.”

Václav Havel (1936–2011) playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and 1st President of the Czech Republic

Interview for the French newspaper Le Monde (29 April 1999); this statement is considered the source of the term w:Humanitarian bombing", frequently used about the Kosovo War.

Question

“Competition has been curtailed by larger corporations; it has been sabotaged by groups of smaller entrepreneurs acting collectively. Both groups have made clear the locus of liberalism's rhetoric of small business and family farm.The character and ideology of the small entrepreneur and the facts of the market are selling the idea of competition short. These liberal heroes, the small businessmen and the farmer, do not want to develop their characters by free and open competition; they do not believe in competition, and they have been doing their best to get away from it.When the small businessmen are asked whether they think free competition is…a good thing, they answer…, 'Yes, of course—what do you mean?' … Finally: 'How about here in this town in furniture?'—or groceries, or whatever the man's line is. Their answers are of two sorts: 'Yes, if it's fair competition,' which turns out to mean: 'if it doesn't make me compete.' … The small businessman, as well as the farmer, wants to become big, not directly by eating up others like himself in competition, but by the indirect ways means practiced by his own particular heroes—those already big. In the dream life of the small entrepreneur, the sure fix is replacing the open market.But if small men wish to close their ranks, why do they continue to talk…about free competition? The answer is that the political function of free competition is what really matters now…[f]or, if there is free competition and a constant coming and going of enterprises, the one who remains established is 'the better man' and 'deserves to be where he is.' But if instead of such competition, there is a rigid line between successful entrepreneurs and the employee community, the man on top may be 'coasting on what his father did,' and not really be worthy of his hard-won position. Nobody talks more of free enterprise and competition and of the best man winning than the man who inherited his father's store or farm. …… In Congress small-business committees clamored for legislation to save the weak backbone of the national economy. Their legislative efforts have been directed against their more efficient competitors. First they tried to kill off the low-priced chain stores by taxation; then they tried to eliminate the alleged buying advantages of mass distributor; finally they tried to freeze the profits of all distributors in order to protect their own profits from those who could and were selling goods cheaper to the consumer.The independent retailer…has been pushing to maintain a given margin under the guise of 'fair competition' and 'fair-trade' laws. He now regularly demands that the number of outlets controlled by chain stores be drastically limited and that production be divorced from distribution. This would, of course, kill the low prices charged consumers by the A&P;, which makes very small retail profits, selling almost at cost, and whose real profits come from the manufacturing and packaging.…Under the threat of 'ruinous competition,' laws are on the books of many states and cities legalizing the ruin of competition.”

C. Wright Mills book White Collar: The American Middle Classes

Section One: The Competitive Way of Life.
White Collar: The American Middle Classes (1951)

Life, Men, Books, Family

“Today that rarely happens. Most often the songs are used as a relief. They have nothing to do with the film per say. And all look almost the same. Just replace the central characters and a step here and there…choreography remains the same in most cases. So does the beat. We have so many classical dances and folk dances in the country but nobody seems to be using them.”

Waheeda Rehman (1938) Indian actress

Quote, Grace personified: Waheeda Rehman

Dance, Country

“My mother would write letters when I was away at camp and say, 'There's an Ann-shaped space around the house. Nobody fills an Ann-shaped space except an Ann.' I'm convinced we all have a God-shaped space in us, and until we fill that space with God, we'll never know what it is to be whole.”

Ann B. Davis (1926–2014) American actress

People magazine in 1992

God, Housing

“I walked down the hill, forgot philosophy, and joined the human race again. Nobody was particularly glad to see me.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Treason (1988)

“Where I live, nobody who's fourteen is having sex and doing major drugs. And I think if you see it in the movies, you may be influenced by it. I think it's so important to preserve your innocence.”

Natalie Portman (1981) Israeli-American actress

Ingenue interview, March 1996 by Ted Demme, Ingrid Sischy http://www.natalieportman.com/articles/nparticles_en.php?viewarticle=1&article_number=20

Sex, Thinking

“We see the same lack of critical thinking and inconsistency in our privacy with regard to government spying and Fourth Amendment and search and seizure issues. There are a number of issues where Americans — and I have to say conservatives — are like sheep, and they’re sheep being led to the slaughter without critically examining what it is that the government is doing and what it is that their government is allowing big corporations that are "too big to fail" to do to us. This is no different than the mortgage crisis, and some other crises in our country where some companies are just too big to fail, and they have spread so much money in so many people’s pockets on both sides of the aisle that there’s nobody left to speak for the consumers.”

Harmeet Dhillon (1969) American lawyer

Exclusive – Harmeet Dhillon: Silicon Valley ‘Actively Trying to Blacklist’ Conservatives ‘Through Some Hiring Engines’ http://www.breitbart.com/radio/2018/04/20/dhillon-silicon-valley-actively-trying-blacklist-conservatives-hiring-engines/ (April 19, 2018)

Money, People, Search, Thinking

“There is one thing about being President — nobody can tell you when to sit down.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

As quoted in"Sayings of the Week" in The Observer (9 August 1953), and The MacMillan Dictionary of Quotations (1989) by John Daintith, Hazel Egerton, Rosalind Ferguson, Anne Stibbs and Edmund Wright, p. 447
1950s

“Over the years, I've made a lot of predictions that have come true. Remember this one: two years from now, even those who supported Barack Obama most enthusiastically will be feeling a certain nostalgia about George W. Bush and secretly wishing they'd voted for John McCain.
Yeah, I know, disgusting. But that's the way the world works. Nobody alive today would willingly admit to voting for Adolf Hitler, although the third or fourth worst mass-murderer in history (behind Mao Tse Tung, Joseph Stalin, and, on a per capita basis, Pol Pot) won by a landslide. Once the outrages to come have ended and there are thousands — perhaps even millions — of Obama's crimes to account for, would you want to admit to having voted to make those crimes possible?”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

"Only Nixon".

World, Way, Feeling, History

“Jews abused and attacked on the streets of European cities… Muslim mobs attacking synagogues… Nobody gives a damn about Jews and they never have, which is why the Holocaust was allowed to happen in the first place.”

Pat Condell (1949) Stand-up comedian, writer, and Internet personality

"A New Kind of Hate" (27 January 2015) https://youtube.com/watch/?v=YQjTLGgQV2w 2015

“They don't patronize me for being a woman. Nobody puts me down.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Interview for Daily Express (8 August 1980) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104260 on male heads of state, quoted in Chris Ogden, Maggie: An Intimate Portrait of a Woman in Power (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990), p. 341. First term as Prime Minister

“When I was 16, I saw six people die horribly in an accident. I walked home holding on to walls and trees. It took me months to begin to function again. So I don't drive. But whether I drive or not is irrelevant. The automobile is the most dangerous weapon in our society — cars kill more than wars do. More than 50,000 people will die this year because of them and nobody seems to notice.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Playboy interview (1996)

War, People, Cars, Home

“Four guys could get together and make their own movie, in a year, but nobody does it 'cause they got bills to pay. What I'm saying is, that's what I would do, if I was young. I wouldn't even get a job. I'd get a couple of computers and a bunch of guys, we'd eat crap for a year, millionaires the next year if we did a good film. It's so extraordinary. Instead of crying about getting a job at Disney or "things are falling apart", things the old animators were doing when I was a kid, "it's all crumbling!" It's not crumbling, you're crumbling! You got these computers that could do this stuff for nothing! What do you do with it? You try to get a job for some asshole studio. It's so dumb.”

Ralph Bakshi (1938) Animator, filmmaker

Guy, Animals, Cry

“It's the fault of those physicists and that synchronicity theory, every particle being connected with every other; you can't fart without changing the balance in the universe. It makes living a funny joke with nobody around to laugh. I open a book and get a report on future events that even God would like to file and forget. And who am I? The wrong person; I can tell you that.”

Philip K. Dick book The Man in the High Castle

The Man in the High Castle (1962)

God, Books, Universe, Change

“I ain’t up on sillygisms, but I can give you some arguments that nobody can answer. p. 13”

George Washington Plunkitt (1842–1924) New York State Senator

Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, Chapter 3, The Curse of Civil Service Reform

“You often feel about something in Shakespeare or Dostoevsky that nobody ever said such a thing, but it's just the sort of thing people would say if they could — is more real, in some sense, than what people do say. If you have given your imagination free rein, let things go as far as they want to go, the world they made for themselves while you watched can have, for you and later watchers, a spontaneous finality.”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

"On Preparing to Read Kipling," introduction to The Best Short Stories of Rudyard Kipling (1961) [p. 335]
Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964 (1980)

People, World, Feeling, Imagination

“Have you ever noticed that there are no Maytag user groups? Nobody needs a mutual support group to run a washing machine.”

Jef Raskin (1943–2005) American computer scientist

Programmers At Work (1986)

Support

“Nobody seemed to be interested in anything except making money.”

William Saroyan (1908–1981) American writer

The Bicycle Rider In Beverly Hills (1952)

Money

“While they complain about candidates pandering to special-interest groups, 217 years of this republic have shown that deep down people want candidates who strive to be all things to all men. People say they want office-seekers who are candid, frank, straightforward, genuine, who tell the truth even when it hurts. Who are on the up-and-up, guileless, unartful, undesigning, unequivocal. But nobody has won running on that platform, including Lincoln, FDR and Reagan, and you will be no exception. Voters elect only candidates who are deceptive, duplicitous, bluffers, cunning, crafty and Machiavellian. That's because voters want politicians like themselves. The media agrees. So why are you out of step? Thus, you've botched your campaign. You're going to lose by a landslide. I accuse you of being politically pure, clean, pristine, impeccable and untarnished. Your very presence embarrasses the system because you don't play by the historic rules.”

Alan Keyes (1950) American politician

Thomas Roeser to Keyes in the Chicago Sun Times.
Miscellaneous

Men, People, Truth, Hurt

“…he knew there wasn't a soul in the mob he could trust – except perhaps Dallow. That didn't matter. You couldn't make mistakes when you trusted nobody.”

Graham Greene book Brighton Rock

Brighton Rock (1938)

Soul

“Most actors are basically neurotic people. Terribly, terribly unhappy. That's one of the reasons they become actors. Nobody well adjusted would ever want to expose himself or herself to a large group of strangers. Think of it. Insanity! Generally, by their very nature - that is if they're at all dedicated - actors do not make good parents. They are altogether egotistical and selfish. The better the actor - and I hate to say it, the bigger the star - why, the more that seems to be true. Honestly, I don't think I've ever known one - not one!”

Margaret Sullavan (1909–1960) actress

star who was successfully able to combine a career and family life
from Haywire (1977) by Brooke Hayward. Jonathan Cape Ltd., p. 218. ISBN 0224014269.

Life, Hate, People, Family

“Nobody is happy about losing lives but, remember, these are not draftees. These are full-time professional soldiers.”

Mitch McConnell (1942) US Senator from Kentucky, Senate Majority Leader

December 7, 2007 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22221245/. 2007

Happiness, Time

“A myth has it that in the Texas League some years back, Billy Williams hit a line drive so hard it broke the leg of a rival first baseman. The myth is total nonsense. Williams actually hit a one-bounce ground shot that broke the leg of a rival second baseman. When Billy Williams sets the record straight, he laughs, and tiny white lights glitter in his black eyes, like the tips of icepicks. You know," he says, "nobody likes to hurt anybody. But you have to think I hit that ball pretty good." This is the Billy Williams laugh. It is not a friendly laugh. It is the laugh of an arrogant hitter. Stan Musial used to giggle that way, and no one would confuse it with a girlish giggle. Ted Williams used to grin that way when he talked about hitting. Not a friendly grin; a wicked grin. That is Billy Williams' laugh. It is probably the way the legendary Billy the Kid laughed before he killed a man. Cold as the tip of an icepick. Not that Billy Williams is not a friendly man. He is. Very. He is one of the nicest guys in baseball. But he knows how to separate the two—nice guy, big league hitter.”

Arnold Hano (1922) American writer

From "Billy Williams: Invisible Iron Man," in Baseball Stars of 1971 (March 1971), edited by Ray Robinson, p. 106
Sports-related

Way, Guy, Thinking, Light

“Among artists without talent Marxism will always be popular, since it enables them to blame society for the fact that nobody wants to hear what they have to say.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

'Wuthering depths'
Essays and reviews, The Crystal Bucket (1982)

“I don’t mind people admiring me if they want to but I don’t think it’s very logical. It’s not like I was St. George knocking off some dumb dragon or anything like that. First of all, you’re talking about something I did a long, long time ago. Secondly, we were doing things that were not expected to last a lifetime. We figured they’d last about three years and then disappear forever. Remember there was no television back then and no place for the cartoons to go after they left the theaters. But I’m not trying to demean what we did. I always took the work very seriously and I’m proud to have been associated with the work we did. It’s just that adulation is impractical and makes me uncomfortable. Nobody noticed us back then. Nobody called us geniuses. And we didn’t feel like artists. We were just trying to make people laugh.”

Chuck Jones (1912–2002) American animator, cartoon artist, screenwriter, producer, and director of animated films

Orange County Register, October 22, 1989

People, Feeling, Thinking, Time

“When you're screwing up and nobody says anything to you anymore, that means they've given up on you.”

Randy Pausch book The Last Lecture

The Last Lecture (2008)

“Well I'm afraid it simply does, um, [the Catholic Church] does condemn [homosexuality], yes, it calls it a - the official word is disorder, but it was refined by the current Pontiff, Ratzinger, who called it a 'moral evil'. But on the other hand we must remember, as the point that was made is that the church is very loose on moral evils because, although they try to accuse people like me who believe in the empiricism and the enlightenment of somehow what they call moral relativism, as if it's some appalling sin where what it actually means is thought, um, they um, they for example thought that slavery was perfectly fine… absolutely okay, and then they didn't, and what is the point of the Catholic Church if it says 'oh well we couldn't know better because nobody else did?”

Stephen Fry (1957) English comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and activist

(To the affirmative team) Then what are you for?!
Answering a question during the Intelligence² debate: "The Catholic Church is a force for good in the world", November 7th 2009
2000s

People, Evil

“My position is that America is great precisely because it is an open society, and an open society recognizes that nobody is the ultimate arbiter — and that we may be wrong at times, even if we are powerful. We must be open to criticism and respect divergent and different views and interests.”

George Soros (1930) Hungarian-American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

BuzzFlash interview (2004)

Time

“I don't think there's necessarily a story, but there's definitely a theme here. One of my favorite kind of dark jokes is, "How do you make God laugh? You make a plan." Nobody ever makes a plan that they're gonna go out and get hit by a car. A plan almost always has a happy ending. Essentially, every plan is a tiny prayer to Father Time. I really like the idea of a plan not being seen as having definite outcomes, but more like little wishes.”

Ben Gibbard (1976) American singer, songwriter and guitarist

On the the title of the Death Cab for Cutie album Plans, as quoted in Mix online (1 January 2006) http://mixonline.com/mag/audio_death_cab_cutie_2/index.html

God, Happiness, Cars, Idea

“All forms of violence are quests for identity. When you live on the frontier, you have no identity. You're a nobody.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

1970s, The Education of Mike McManus, TVOntario, December 28 1977

“Really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and nobody around them who works. So they literally have no habit of showing up on Monday. They have no habit of staying all day. They have no habit of "I do this and you give me cash", unless it's illegal.”

Newt Gingrich (1943) Professor, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives

2010s

Children

“The thing that nobody really said about Rebecca Adlington is that she looks pretty weird. She looks like someone who's looking at themselves in the back of a spoon.”

Frankie Boyle (1972) Scottish comedian

Mock the Week

“Politically aware citizens are ready to exercise their franchise this time, and nobody can stop the nationalist force from coming to power at the Centre. But we must ensure 100 per cent polling to strengthen them.”

Mohan Bhagwat (1950) Indian activist

As quoted in " RSS leader Mohan Bhagwat demands '100 per cent' unity within the BJP to ensure 'nationalist' victory in polls http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/rss-chief-mohan-bhagwat-warns-bjp-against-infighting/1/343753.html", India Today (16 February 2014) 2011-2014

Exercises, Time

“Made a meal and threw it up on Sunday / I've got a lot of things to learn
What's the matter with you? / Sing me something new
The cold and wind and rain don't know / They only seem to come, and go away
Stand by me / Nobody knows the way it's going to be
There is one thing I can never give you / My heart will never be your home”

Noel Gallagher (1967) British musician

Stand By Me
Be Here Now (1997)

Way, Home, Learning, Singing

“Nobody told me when to retire. Sourav (Ganguly) took his decision, I took my own decision, there was no pressure. Let`s leave it to the individuals. Criticism is fine but don`t do it without reason. Don`t start questioning the ability of the players. There is no retirement scheme, that`s rubbish.”

Anil Kumble (1970) Former Indian cricketer

Quoted in "Kumble Calls It A day: Quotes... For and By Kumble..."

Question, Decision

“The English language is nobody's special property. It is the property of the imagination: it is the property of the language itself.”

Derek Walcott (1930–2017) Saint Lucian–Trinidadian poet and playwright

Interview with Ed Hirsch (1986), Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, Eighth Series (Penguin, 1988)

Imagination

“There can be only one permanent revolution — a moral one; the regeneration of the inner man.
How is this revolution to take place? Nobody knows how it will take place in humanity, but every man feels it clearly in himself. And yet in our world everybody thinks of changing humanity, and nobody thinks of changing himself.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

"Three Methods Of Reform" in Pamphlets : Translated from the Russian (1900) as translated by Aylmer Maude, p. 29
As quoted in The Artist's Way at Work : Riding the Dragon (1999) by Mark A. Bryan with Julia Cameron and Catherine A. Allen, p. 160
Variant: Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.

World, Feeling, Thinking, Change

“You know what's the worst part about being an actress? It's the pressure to look gorgeous all the time and to behave perfectly. But I'm not perfect, nobody is.”

Preity Zinta (1975) film actress

Famous quotes

Time, Parting, Perfection

“Bex shrugged. “You think anybody’s going to listen to a bunch of scientists? No offense. But nobody has so far.””

Stephen Baxter book Evolution

Prologue (p. 6)
Evolution (2002)

Thinking

“Nobody, I believe, will deny, that we are to form our judgment of the true nature of the human mind, not from sloth and stupidity of the most degenerate and vilest of men, but from the sentiments and fervent desires of the best and wisest of the species.”

Robert Leighton (1611–1684) 17th century Archbishop of Glasgow, and Principal of the University of Edinburgh

Theological Lectures, No. 5, "Of the Immortality of the Soul", reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 514.

Men, Stupidity, Nature

“Nobody ever inferred from the multiple infirmities of Windows that Bill Gates was infinitely benevolent, omniscient, and able to fix everything.”

Simon Blackburn (1944) British academic philosopher

Source: Think (1999), Chapter Five, God, p. 170

“I called myself the king of debt. I'm the king of debt. I'm great with debt, nobody knows debt better than me. I made a fortune by using debt. And if things don't work out I renegotiate the debt, I mean that's a smart thing not a stupid thing. And I made a fortune.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2016, June

Stupidity

“Because of the economic crisis, China and the United States are bound together. This is a totally new phenomenon, and nobody will fight for ideology anymore. It’s all about business.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2000-09, Who Is Ai Weiwei?, 2009

Business, Fight

“I've come out here tonight to challenge you… challenge you, the WWE Universe, into seeing things my way and to learn how to just say "no." See, because the people who cheer for Jeff Hardy are just slaves to the vices associated with his (with quote fingers) "living in the moment." I feel bad for you, I really do. You walk around almost blind and you wear your prescriptions proudly on your sleeves like they were badges of honor. What was it the doctor told you? 'Just take one… every four hours,' right? Aside from myself, there's not a person in this arena who hasn't abused prescription medication or taken a recreational drug. And I know, trust me, it's hard being straight-edge, it's hard to live a straight-edge lifestyle. It's extremely difficult to be me, but what concerns me now is that none of you realize how much more difficult it is to live the life… that you all live. I'm positive nobody in here takes into account the long-term consequences of alcohol on your liver. (Smattering of cheers from audience) See, and you cheer that. That's nothing to cheer. You drink because it's fun, right? (Audience cheers a little louder) Eventually, it's not gonna be fun anymore when it spirals out of control and its no longer… it's no longer fun. Sooner or later, you're just drinking to feel normal. And then there's the smokers. You know, I don't know what's more disgusting–is watching a smoker pollute his/her lungs with over 4,000 foreign chemicals, or having to listen to the smoker convince themselves that they can quit whenever they want to. It's… it's hard to quit, I know, it takes a very strong person to quit, but an even stronger person never would've started smoking in the first place. (Audience boos and chants "Hardy") I didn't want to come out here and be the bearer of bad news, but let's face facts: chances are pretty slim that any of you here will ever get the monkey off your back. You'll never be able to pry the cigarette from your lips, or find the self-control to pour your drink from your glass, or the self-respect to take the pill out of your mouth. See, it starts, and it can't happen without learning how to say "no" to temptation, and that's why I'm out here. I'm out here to challenge you before it's too late. Please, learn how to say "no" to temptation, learn how to say "no" to your vices, learn how to control yourself.”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

July 24, 2009
Friday Night SmackDown

Life, People, Alcohol, Way

“What he'd just said was "Who cares?" and nobody wants to hear that.”

Daniel Handler book Adverbs

Adverbs (2006), Wrongly

“I would love to be able to be the one that made peace with Israel and the Palestinians. I would love that, that would be such a great achievement. Because nobody's been able to do it. … I've had a lot of, actually, great Israeli businesspeople tell me, you can't do that, it's impossible. I disagree, I think you can make peace. I think people are tired now of being shot, killed. At some point, when do they come? I think we can do that. I have reason to believe I can do that.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2016, November, New York Times Interview (November 23, 2016)

Love, People, Peace, Thinking

“Listen, this is crazy. I look like I'm 75 years old. Nobody wants to watch an old man being funny. That's just a fact. No one wants to see this old man on TV.”

Larry David (1947) American comedian, writer, actor, and television producer

When his show went onto a high definition channel. Interview, Esquire, September 18, 2009 http://www.esquire.com/features/the-screen/larry-david-interview-0709

“Well I was eating lunch at the D. L. G.
When this little girl came and she sat next to me
I never seen nobody move the way she did
Well she did and she does and she'll do it again.
When you move like a jellyfish
Rhythm don't mean nothing
You go with the flow
You don't stop
Move like a jellyfish
Rhythm is nothing
You go with the flow
You don't stop”

Jack Johnson (musician) (1975) American musician

Bubble Toes.
Song lyrics, Brushfire Fairytales (2001)

Way, Girl

“I'm truly honored by your support. Together, we accomplished what nobody thought was absolutely possible and you know what that is and we're only getting started and it's going to be beautiful, remember that. Tonight we close one chapter in history and we begin another. Our campaign received more primary votes than any GOP campaign in history, no matter who it is, no matter who they are, we received more votes. This is a great feeling. That's a great feeling. This is not a testament to me but a testament to all of the people who believed real change, not Obama change, but real change is possible. You've given me the honor to lead the Republican Party to victory this fall.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Victory speech after winning New Jersey and other states Tuesday night (7 June 2016) – TIME transcript http://time.com/4360872/donald-trump-new-jersey-victory-speech-transcript/ 2010s, 2016, June

People, Beauty, Feeling, History

“The dinner that evening was dreadful, the epitome of English vacuity…they were all the same, each mind set in the same weird armour, like an archosaur’s ruff, like a fringe of icicles. All I heard the whole evening was the tinkle of broken ice-needles as people tried timidly and vainly to reach through the stale fence of words, tinkle, tinkle, and then withdraw. Nobody behaved with breadth, with warmth, with naturalness, and finally it became pathetic. We were all the same; I hardly said anything, but that made me no more innocent – or less conditioned. The solemn figures of the Old Country, the Queen, the Public School, Oxbridge, the Right Accent, People Like Us, stood around the table like secret police, ready to crush down in an instant on any attempt at an intelligent European humanity.* We…were held by those cloud-grey shapes on the world’s blue rim. Death machines holding thousands of gum-chewing, contraceptive-carrying men; for some reason more 30 years away than 30 miles; as if we were looking into the future, not the south; into a world where there were no more Prosperos, no private domains, no Poetries, fantasies, tender sexual promises…I felt acutely the fragility of time itself…”

John Fowles book Daniel Martin

Daniel Martin (1977)

Death, Men, People, Secret

“I think the basic misconception is to speak of the so-called “best” allocation of resources. What is the best? In common economics it is defined as what would be if we knew everything. Economists operate with the fictitious assumption that all the relevant data is known, but this is totally unrealistic. Nobody knows all the data. What we have is widely dispersed knowledge, which cannot be concentrated in one mind. To call the situation—which would use all the knowledge available—“optimal” is nonsense because it is by definition a non-achievable solution. Our problem is not the full utilization of all knowledge but the best use we can achieve with any known institutional structure. In that sense, some oligopolistic (and even monopolistic situations), represent the best possible utilization of knowledge that we can achieve. Even the action of a monopolist can be extremely beneficial.”

Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) Austrian and British economist and Nobel Prize for Economics laureate

1960s–1970s, A Conversation with Professor Friedrich A. Hayek (1979)

Optimism, Knowledge, Problem, Thinking

“In democracy, nobody is above anybody else apart from he who is elected by the people.”

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (1960) Former Prime Minister of Spain

24th Feb. 2008
As President, 2008

People, Democracy

“Nobody has ever thought himself to death. The chief danger confronting us is not age. It is laziness, sloth, routine, stupidity, — forcing their way in like wind through the shutters, seeping into the cellar like swamp water.”

Gilbert Highet (1906–1978) British academic

The Immortal Profession: The Joys of Teaching and Learning (1976)

Death, Age, Stupidity, Way

“You know, I understand how you feel. This is a really contentious issue. Probably as contentious, and potentially as troubling as the abortion issue in this country. All I can tell you is, rushes to pass legislation at a time of national crisis or mourning, I don't really think are proper. And more importantly, nothing in any of this legislation would have done anything to prevent that awful tragedy in Littleton.What I see in the work I've done with kids is, is troubling direction in our culture. And where I see consensus, which is I think we ought to concentrate on in our culture is… look… nobody argues anymore whether they're Conservatives or Liberal whether our society is going in the wrong direction. They may argue trying to quantify how far it's gone wrong or why it's gone that far wrong, whether it's guns, or television, or the Internet, or whatever. But there's consensus saying that something's happened. Guns were much more accessible 40 years ago. A kid could walk into a pawn shop or a hardware store and buy a high-capacity magazine weapon that could kill a lot of people and they didn't do it.The question we should be asking is… look… suicide is a tragedy. And it's a horrible thing. But 30 or 40 years ago, particularly men, and even young men, when they were suicidal, they went, and unfortunately, blew their brains out. In today's world, someone who is suicidal sits home, nurses their grievance, develops a rage, and is just a suicidal but they take 20 people with them. There's something changed in our culture.</p”

Tom Selleck (1945) American actor

On The Rosie O'Donnell Show on May 19th, 1999.

Men, People, World, Feeling

“When your young and hungry and nobody's ever really accepted you because of your color and class, the hurt of your own family having cast you out in the first place still inside you somewhere, you dance hard because there is no other way to live, and when opportunity knocks its more of an abduction than a housecall.”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

From Her Books, I Have Chosen To Stay And Fight, FOLLOWING YOUR DREAMS

Family, Color, Way, Dance

“Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, "But how can it be like that?" because you will get "down the drain", into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that.”

Richard Feynman book The Character of Physical Law

Concerning the apparent absurdities of quantum behavior.
chapter 6, “Probability and Uncertainty — the Quantum Mechanical View of Nature,” p. 129
The Character of Physical Law (1965)

“Another Saturday night and I ain't got nobody,
I have some money 'cause I just got paid.
How I wish I had someone to talk to,
I'm in an awful way.”

Sam Cooke (1931–1964) American singer-songwriter and entrepreneur

Another Saturday Night
Song lyrics, Ain't That Good News (1964)

Money, Way, Night

“I am in the awkward situation of writing a foreword to a book by a gay person. This is an awkward situation not because Joe Perez is gay, but because I have to point it out. I feel the same damn irritation as having to refer to, say, Edmund White as a "gay writer." Nobody has to point out that I am heterosexual, although now I hear that I am not a heterosexual but a metrosexual, although, in fact, I have never had sex with a metro in my life. But I'm sure it is a wonderful experience.”

Ken Wilber (1949) American writer and public speaker

Integral Spirituality in Real Life

Life, Books, Sex, Feeling

“If you stay in Canada, I can, too. Everybody says Canada is a hard country to govern, but nobody mentions that for some people it is also a hard country to live in. Still, if we all run away it will never be any better. So let the geniuses of easy virtue go southward; I know what they feel too well to blame them. But for some of us there is no choice; let Canada do what she will with us, we must stay.”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

Fortune, My Foe (1949).

People, Feeling, Country

“Mulder: Sorry, nobody down here but the FBI's most unwanted.
Scully: Agent Mulder. I'm Dana Scully. I've been assigned to work with you.
Mulder: Oh, isn't it nice to be suddenly so highly regarded. So who did you tick off to get stuck with this detail, Scully?
Scully: Actually, I'm looking forward to working with you. I've heard a lot about you.
Mulder: Oh, really… I was under the impression that you were sent to spy on me.”

Chris Carter (1956) American television and film producer, director and writer

Pilot [1.1] (10 September 1993)
The X-Files (1993-2002)

“The BNP isn't about selling out its ideas, which are your ideas too, but we are determined to sell them. Basically, that means to use saleable words – such as freedom, identity, security, democracy. […]
Once we're in a position where we control the British broadcasting media, then perhaps one day the British people might change their mind and say, 'yes, every last one must go'. But if you hold that out as your sole aim to start with, you're not going to get anywhere. So, instead of talking about racial purity, we talk about identity. […]
There's a difference between selling out your ideas and selling your ideas, and the British National Party isn't about selling out its ideas, which are your ideas too, but we are determined now to sell them, and that means basically to use the saleable words, as I say, freedom, security, identity, democracy. Nobody can criticise them. Nobody can come at you and attack you on those ideas. They are saleable.”

Nick Griffin (1959) British politician

– talking to the American Friends of the BNP —

People, Democracy, Idea, Freedom

“There is one thing I don't understand about Astral Weeks. Of all the records I have ever made that one is definitely not rock. You could throw that record at the wall, take it to music colleges, analyze it to death. Nobody is going to tell me that it is a rock album. Why they keep calling it one I have no idea.”

Van Morrison (1945) Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician

An Oral History of Popular Music (1989)

Death, Music, Idea, Understanding

“I’m a terrible salesman,” he finally said. “I always tell the truth about what I’m selling, and then nobody buys it.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, The Crystal City (2003), Chapter 12 “Springfield” (p. 250).

Truth

“Justice doesn’t exist! We did worse things. Nobody deserves to go to that place, Alec said. Anyway, weren’t you Christian types supposed to forgive everybody?
I will shed no tears for that bastard’s damnation, said Nicholas stonily.
No wonder nobody’s left that believes in your stupid religion, said Alec.”

Kage Baker book The Machine's Child

Source: The Machine's Child (2006), Chapter 21, “Santa Catalina Island, 1923 AD” (p. 218)

Stupidity, Religion, Justice, Forgiveness

“Nobody can find fault with legitimate ambition, but when the wealth of the spiritual and intellectual life is reduced to a formula for overcoming sales resistance, we protest.”

Robertson Davies book A Voice from the Attic

A Voice from the Attic (1960)

Life, Wealth

“Have you never wanted to do anything that was dangerous? Where should we be if nobody tried to find out what lies beyond? You never wanted to look beyond the clouds and the stars, or to know what causes the trees to bud, and what changes a darkness into light? But if you talk like that, people call you crazy. Well, if I could discover just one of these things—what eternity is, for example—I wouldn't care if they did think I was crazy.”

Garrett Fort (1900–1945) screenwriter

Frankenstein, trying to explain to his fiancee why he experiments the way he does
Frankenstein (1931)

People, Star, Thinking, Tree

“I'm from a land called secret Estonia
Nobody knows where it's at”

Kerli (1987) Estonian singer

Creepshow
Love is Dead (2008)

Secret

“…they were nobodies in the county, they would leave nothing behind but their headstones.”

John Updike book Rabbit Remembered

Rabbit Remembered (2000)

“If you drive a nation to adopt procedures which run counter to its instincts, you weaken and may destroy the motive force of its action…You will realise that I am speaking of the frequent suggestion that the United Kingdom should join a federation on the continent of Europe. This is something which we know, in our bones, we cannot do…For Britain's story and her interests lie far beyond the continent of Europe. Our thoughts move across the seas to the many communities in which our people play their part, in every corner of the world. These are our family ties. That is our life: without it we should be no more than some millions of people living in an island off the coast of Europe, in which nobody wants to take any particular interest.”

Anthony Eden (1897–1977) British Conservative politician, prime minister

Speech to the Columbia University, New York (January 1952), quoted in Anthony Eden, Full Circle (Cassell, 1960), pp. 36-7

Life, People, Lie, World

“[Meat industry] truly is a disgusting industry, all the more so because it’s hidden. Have you ever seen animals being shipped to abattoirs? Do you even know where these abattoirs are? Have you ever seen an animal getting killed for the food you eat? It’s a dark, dark, dark trade that nobody really knows about, and a hugely profitable one at that. … If I don’t believe in killing animals, why on earth would I do it for the sake of fashion … I don’t think there’s any difference, because at the end of the day you’re killing an animal and stripping its skin off its body. It’s somebody’s baby – or it has a baby – it breathes, it lives, it has emotions, it has feelings … I find it fascinating that leather and fur are so often associated with the top luxury level of fashion. And yet leather, in this day and age, is probably cheaper than a piece of cotton. So there’s such a tiny price put on an animal’s life.”

Stella McCartney (1971) British fashion designer

" “I don’t understand what is going on on this planet, it’s all so fucked up.” Interview with Stella McCartney https://www.numero.com/en/fashion/stella-mccartney-leather-fur-vegan-kering-pinault-met-gala-anna-wintour", Numéro (28 June 2018).

Life, Age, Food, Feeling

“There were times when Robert actually envied his ancestors, who had lived in dark ignorance, before the twenty-first century, and seemed to have spent most of their time making up weird, ornate explanations of the world to fill the yawning gap of their ignorance. Back then, one could believe in anything at all.
Simple, deliciously elegant explanations of human behavior—it apparently never mattered whether they were true or not, as long as they were incanted right. "Party lines" and wonderful conspiracy theories abounded. You could even believe in your own sainthood if you wanted. Nobody was there to show you, with clear experimental proof, that there was no easy answer, no magic bullet, no philosopher's stone. Only simple, boring sanity.
How narrow the Golden Age looked in retrospect.”

David Brin book The Uplift War

Source: The Uplift War (1987), Chapter 53 (pp. 324-325)

Age, World, Behavior, Time

“Satan has got a plan; and God has got a plan. God's plan is to fill his creation with people who obey his laws, live in peace, use the preaching of his Word to win souls, and go to live with Him in Heaven. Satan's plan is to reduce the population to zero. He hates humanity, exactly the opposite of Christianity. He wants to promise secret knowledge so that: "you can learn something that nobody else knows." That's what all the lodges promise too, by the way - some kind of secret knowledge. Use the teaching of evolution to get people to accomplish his goals and have people go to hell forever. Satan wants to reduce the population. The Bible says, "All things were created by him, and for him." God made a beautiful planet, beautiful garden and said, "Hey, fill it with people." First thing he said to Adam, was a blessing. "Be fruitful, multiply, replenish the earth." Go fill it up. It's a blessing. This is the first mention of the word, "blessing."”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

"Blessed."
Creation seminars (2003-2005), The dangers of evolution

God, Hate, People, Secret

“Our wants are various, and nobody has been found able to acquire even the necessaries without the aid of other people, and there is scarcely any Nation that has not stood in need of others. The Almighty himself has made our race such that we should help one another. Should this mutual aid be checked within or without the Nation, it is contrary to Nature.”

Anders Chydenius book The National Gain

The National Gain, §2, 1765.

People, Nature, Help

“So if I say you that your paintings [which his brother-in-law recently made] have nothing in common with what we see generally classified and accepted, and that you have always managed to produce things that were entirely your own work, as I truly see it, that does not mean you have the right to be seated next to Leonardo -
What's more, this originality is suicidal as it distances you from a 'clientele' used to 'copies of copiers', often referred to as 'tradition'-
One more thing, your technique is not the 'expected' technique – It's your own personal technique, borrowed from nobody – and there again, this doesn't attract the clientele.... In a word, do less self-analysis and enjoy your work without worrying about opinions, your own as well as that of others.”

Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) French painter and sculptor

Quote from Duchamp's letter to Jean Crotti (Duchamp's brother-in-law) and his sister Suzanne Duchamp, New York 17 Augustus 1952; as cited in The Duchamp Book, ed. Gavin Parkinson, Tate Publishing, London 2008 pp. 167-168
1951 - 1968

Law, Suicide, Painting, Personality