Quotes about nobody
page 2

“it is the ordinary lot of people to have no friends if they themselves care for nobody”

William Makepeace Thackeray Vanity Fair

Source: Vanity Fair

People

“If you limit your actions in life to things that nobody can possibly find fault with, you will not do much!”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Life

“Friends tell each other what nobody else is willing to tell you.”

Nikki Sixx (1958) American musician

Source: This Is Gonna Hurt: Music, Photography, And Life Through The Distorted Lens Of Nikki Sixx

“Yes, I deserve a spring–I owe nobody nothing.”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

Source: A Writer's Diary

Spring

“Nobody knew my rose of the world but me… I had too much glory. They don't want glory like that in nobody's heart”

Tennessee Williams (1911–1983) American playwright

World, Heart

“I see again my schoolroom in Vyra, the blue roses of the wallpaper, the open window.… Everything is as it should be, nothing will ever change, nobody will ever die.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Speak, Memory

Source: Speak, Memory

Change

“Nobody likes a clown at midnight”

Stephen King (1947) American author

“That's what happens when people reach old age; nobody remembers they've been bastards too.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Prisoner of Heaven

Source: The Prisoner of Heaven

People, Age

“Nobody loves the light like the blind man.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

Love, Light

“No, she thought, one could say nothing to nobody. The urgency of the moment always missed its mark. Words fluttered sideways and struck the object inches too low.”

Virginia Woolf book To the Lighthouse

Source: To the Lighthouse

“Nobody has a more sacred obligation to obey the law than those who make the law.”

Jean Anouilh Antigone

Source: Antigone

Law

“When I was about twelve I used to think I must be a genius, but nobody's noticed. If there is such a thing as a genius, I am one, and if there isn't I don't care.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Thinking

“Now he knew: They were real. Who’d make up a thing like this? Okay, one of them was a cheese that rolled around of its own accord, but nobody was perfect.”

Terry Pratchett book Wintersmith

Source: Wintersmith

Perfection

“Precious Child… nothing matters but the moment. There might be no tomorrow and even if there is, nobody gives a damn.”

Judy Blume Summer Sisters

Source: Summer Sisters

“Nobody, as long as he moves among the chaotic currents of life, is without trouble.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

Life

“I’m very conscious of the fact that you can’t do it alone. It’s teamwork. When you do it alone you run the risk that when you are no longer there nobody else will do it.”

Wangari Maathai (1940–2011) Kenyan environmental and political activist

Source: The Green Belt Movement: Sharing the Approach and the Experience

“Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.”

Zelda Fitzgerald (1900–1948) Novelist, wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald

Variant: nobody hαs ever meαsured, not even poets, how much the heαrt cαn hold.

Heart, Wise, Relationship, Heart Touching

“It's a disease. Nobody thinks or feels or cares any more; nobody gets excited or believes in anything except their own comfortable little God damn mediocrity.”

Richard Yates book Revolutionary Road

Source: Revolutionary Road

God, Disease, Feeling, Thinking

“I would rather be a little nobody, then to be a evil somebody.”

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

Evil

“Very few people do this any more. It's too risky. First of all, it's a hell of a responsibility to be yourself. It's much easier to be somebody else or nobody at all.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

People, Hell

“People are afraid of you, Arty. Girls are terrified of you. You’re a fifteen-year-old in a bespoke suit, and nobody died.”

Eoin Colfer (1965) Irish author of children's books

People, Girl

“Nobody had noticed, nobody had paid attention, but, as usual, the essential part of the matter had been settled before the story had begun, and by then it was too late.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind

Source: The Shadow of the Wind

Parting

“I must say… that I ruined myself: and that nobody, great or small, can be ruined except by his own hand.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“It has become almost a cliché to remark that nobody boasts of ignorance of literature, but it is socially acceptable to boast ignorance of science and proudly claim incompetence in mathematics.”

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

The Richard Dimbleby Lecture: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder (1996)

Literature, Mathematics, Science

“I dream of a grave, deep and narrow, where we could clasp each other in our arms as with clamps, and I would hide my face in you and you would hide your face in me, and nobody would ever see us any more”

Franz Kafka book The Castle

Source: The Castle (1926)

Dreams

“It appeared that nobody ever said a thing they meant, or ever talked of a feeling they felt, but that was what music was for.”

Virginia Woolf book The Voyage Out

Source: The Voyage Out

Music, Feeling, Appearance

“Nobody knows much about women, not even Freud, not even women themselves.
But it's like electricity: you don't need to know how it works to get a shock on the fingers.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón (1964) Spanish writer

Women

“In school they told me "Practice makes perfect." And then they told me "Nobody's perfect," so then I stopped practicing.”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

When the Leaves Blow Away (2006), I Still Have a Pony (2007)

School, Perfection

“Do you think it's dirty money?
-All money is dirty. If it were clean nobody would want it.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Angel's Game

Source: The Angel's Game

Money, Thinking

“Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man, you take it.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

Variant: Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man, you take it.
Source: Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements
Source: Malcolm X Speaks (1965), p. 111

Justice, Freedom

“He raised his hand in a peaceful gesture. "You need to relax a bit, dove. Like Mouse over there. You trust me, don't you, Mouse?"
"Nope!"
"Ahhh, I'm hurt. Nobody likes me.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Burns

Peace, Hurt

“The more you try to be special, the more you get hurt. Just be, just melt and become part of the wind around you, the earth around you, become a part of everything. You’re here only for a while. At least when you’re in a place like this, where nobody is going to trample on you, let your defenses down.”

Sadhguru (1957) Yogi, mystic, visionary and humanitarian

Source: Mystic's Musings

Parting, Hurt

“I mean, it's very subtle and a little embarrassing to me, but I really believe there are things which nobody would see unless I photographed them.”

Diane Arbus (1923–1971) American photographer and author

“Be nobody's darling;
Be an outcast.
Take the contradictions
Of your life
And wrap around
You like a shawl,
To parry stones
To keep you warm.”

Alice Walker (1944) American author and activist

Life

“It is sound judgment to put on a bold face and play your hand for a hundred times what it is worth; forty-nine times out of fifty nobody dares to call it, and you roll in the chips.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Time

“FOR I CAN SEE THE BALANCE AND YOU HAVE LEFT THE WORLD MUCH BETTER THAN YOU FOUND IT, AND IF YOU ASK ME, said Death, NOBODY COULD DO ANY BETTER THAN THAT….”

Terry Pratchett book The Shepherd's Crown

Source: The Shepherd's Crown

Death, World

“Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again.”

André Gide (1869–1951) French novelist and essayist

Toutes choses sont dites déjà; mais comme personne n'écoute, il faut toujours recommencer. Le Traité du Narcisse https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Le_Trait%C3%A9_du_narcisse (The Treatise of the Narcissus) Nothing is said that has not been said before. -- Terence

“Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

Dance

“I’m a witch. It’s what we do. When it’s nobody else’s business, it’s my business.”

Terry Pratchett book I Shall Wear Midnight

Source: I Shall Wear Midnight

Business

“Nobody looks good with brown lipstick on.”

Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer

“She feels lonely all the time, she wants to be accepted, by anyone, on any terms, but she feels apart. As if nobody who really got to know her would trust her.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Feeling, Time

“To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

A Poet's Advice (1958)
Context: Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel …
the moment you feel, you're nobody-but-yourself.
To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

World, Fight, Night

“Baby," I said. "I'm a genius but nobody knows it but me.”

Charles Bukowski book Factotum

Source: Factotum (1975), Ch. 31

Baby

“I love New York. You can pop out of the Underworld in Central Park, hail a taxi, head down Fifth Avenue with a giant hellhound loping behind you, and nobody even looks at you funny.”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

Love

“Now ain nobody tell us it would be fair no love for my father cause the coward wasn't their" {Tu Pac Shukur}”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

Love

“So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say.”

Virginia Woolf book A Room of One's Own

Source: A Room of One's Own

Age

“At school nobody ever taught us how to light a cigarette in a storm of rain, nor how a fire could be made with wet wood-nor that it is best to stick a bayonet in the belly because there it doesn't get jammed, as it does in the ribs.”

Erich Maria Remarque book All Quiet on the Western Front

Source: All Quiet on the Western Front

School, Light

“I never hurt nobody but myself and that's nobody's business but my own.”

Billie Holiday (1915–1959) American jazz singer and songwriter

Business, Hurt

“High school isn't a very important place. When you're going you think it's a big deal, but when it's over nobody really thinks it was great unless they're beered up.”

Stephen King book Carrie

Source: Carrie

School, Beer, Thinking

“Trying to please everybody is impossible - if you did that, you'd end up in the middle with nobody liking you. You've just got to make the decision about what you think is your best, and do it.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Source: The Beatles Anthology

Thinking, Decision

“But I'm a bad priest, you see. I know--from experience--how much beauty Satan carried down with him when he fell. Nobody ever said the fallen angels were the ugly ones. Oh, no, they were just as quick and light and…”

Graham Greene book The Power and the Glory

Source: The Power and the Glory

Beauty, Angels, Light

“Nobody holds a good opinion of a man who holds a low opinion of himself.”

Anthony Trollope book Orley Farm

Source: Orley Farm

“You need to read more science fiction. Nobody who reads science fiction comes out with this crap about the end of history”

Iain Banks (1954–2013) Scottish writer

History, Science, Reading

“Stanley:
Delicate piece she is.
Stella:
She is. She was. You didn't know Blanche as a girl. Nobody, nobody, was tender and trusting as she was. But people like you abused her, and forced her to change.”

Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire

Source: A Streetcar Named Desire

People, Girl, Change

“I love scrapes. They are the only things that are never serious."
"Oh, that's nonsense, Algy. You never talk anything but nonsense."
"Nobody ever does.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Source: The Importance of Being Earnest

Love

“The only people I would care to be with now are artists and people who have suffered: those who know what beauty is, and those who know what sorrow is: nobody else interests me.”

Oscar Wilde book De Profundis

Source: De Profundis

People, Beauty, Suffering

“There is absolutely no greater high than challenging the power structure as a nobody, giving it your all, and winning.”

Abbie Hoffman (1936–1989) American political and social activist

Source: Soon to be a Major Motion Picture (1980), p. 297.
Context: There is absolutely no greater high than challenging the power structure as a nobody, giving it your all, and winning. I think I've learned that lesson twice now. The essence of successful revolution, be it for an individual, a community of individuals, or a nation, depends on accepting that challenge.

“I opened a book and in I strode. Now nobody can find me.”

Julia Donaldson (1948) British children's writer

Books

“A joke is a good camouflage. Next best comes sentiment… But the best camouflage of all - in my opinion - is the plain and simple truth. Because nobody ever believes it.”

Max Frisch (1911–1991) Swiss playwright and novelist

Truth

“I don't know. It's been terribly hard for me. How do I know you won't do it again?'
'Nobody is ever quite sure of what they will do. You aren't sure what you might do.”

Charles Bukowski book Women

Source: Women

“That's the whole point of good propaganda. You want to create a slogan that nobody's going to be against, and everybody's going to be for. Nobody knows what it means, because it doesn't mean anything.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

“In old days books were written by men of letters and read by the public. Nowadays books are written by the public and read by nobody.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

A Few Maxims for the Instruction of the Over-Educated (1894)

Men, Books, Reading

“She was like Marat only with nobody to kill her.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Lolita

Source: Lolita

“It is a brave thing to have courage to be an individual; it is also, perhaps, a lonely thing. But it is better than not being an individual, which is to be nobody at all.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

Source: You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life

Courage

“Just look down the road and tell me if you can see either of them."
I see nobody on the road." said Alice.
I only wishhad such eyes,"the King remarked in a fretful tone. "To be able to see Nobody! And at such a distance too!”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

“Nobody asks you to love the whole world, only to be honest, ehrlich. Don't have a loud mouth. The more you love people the more they'll mix you up. A child loves, a person respects. Respect is better than love.”

Saul Bellow book The Adventures of Augie March

Source: The Adventures of Augie March

Love, People, World, Personality

“Nobody can be bad at everything. There’s no such thing as a perfect screwup.”

Jim Butcher book Mean Streets

Source: Mean Streets

Perfection

“You need not wonder whether you should have an unreliable person as a friend. An unreliable person is nobody's friend.”

Idries Shah book Reflections

Source: Reflections

Personality

“Wars have no memory, and nobody has the courage to understand them until there are no voices left to tell what happened, until the moment comes when we no longer recognize them and they return, with another face and another name, to devour what they left behind.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind

Source: La sombra del viento (The Shadow of the Wind) (2001)

War, Courage, Understanding, Memory

“He says every man is a moon and has a side which he turns toward nobody: you have to slip around behind if you want to see it.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

The Refuge of the Derelicts (unpublished manuscript written 1905–1906) Source: Google Books link https://books.google.com/books?id=uLfR7-ETm0MC&pg=PA326&dq=%22every+man+is+a+moon%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAGoVChMIn_iGm83gyAIVTedjCh0LwAap#v=onepage&q&f=false

“Nobody looks good in their darkest hours. But it's those hours that make us what we are.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Faefever

“the best part was
pulling down the
shades
stuffing the doorbell
with rags
putting the phone
in the
refrigerator
and going to bed
for 3 or 4
days.
and the next best
part
was
nobody ever
missed
me.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Source: You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense

Parting

“Do you really believe that the moon isn’t there when nobody looks?”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

“A good plan isn't one where someone wins, it's where nobody thinks they've lost.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Source: The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

Thinking

“We still name our military helicopter gunships after victims of genocide. Nobody bats an eyelash about that: Blackhawk. Apache. And Comanche. If the Luftwaffe named its military helicopters Jew and Gypsy, I suppose people would notice.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Source: Propaganda and the Public Mind: Conversations with Noam Chomsky and David Barsamian

People

“No boys for me growing up! I was so skinny and tall. Everybody called me a giraffe. … I had no boobs and no butt and nobody liked me, I was so lonely. All the boys would come to me and want advice because they wanted my friend. But nobody ever wanted me — high school was a very sad, lonely time.”

Izabel Goulart (1984) Brazilian model

"Pop Tarts: Victoria's Scarring Secrets: Teased for Being Too Skinny" http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,314106,00.html, 30 November 2007, Fox News.

Sadness, School, Boy, Time

“Honey, I jes' walked round an' round in a dream. Jesus loved me! I knowed it - I fel it. Jesus was my Jesus. Jesus would love me always. I did n't dare tell nobody; it was a great secret. Everything had been got away from me that I ever had; an' I thought that ef I let white folks know about this, maybe they'd get him away - so I said, 'I'll keep this close. I wont let any one know.”

Sojourner Truth (1797–1883) African-American abolitionist and women's rights activist

Olive Gilbert & Sojourner Truth (1878), Narrative of Sojourner Truth, a Bondswoman of Olden Time, page 159. ( text at sojournertruth.org http://www.sojournertruth.org/Library/Archive/LibyanSibyl.htm)

Love, Secret, Dreams

“Ain't nobody expect Kanye to end up on top
They expected that College Dropout to drop and then flop”

Kanye West (1977) American rapper, singer and songwriter

Last Call
Lyrics, The College Dropout (2004)

“The very fact that religions are not content to stand on their own feet, but insist on crippling or warping the flexible minds of children in their favour, forms a sufficient proof that there is no truth in them. If there were any truth in religion, it would be even more acceptable to a mature mind than to an infant mind—yet no mature mind ever accepts religion unless it has been crippled in infancy. … The whole basis of religion is a symbolic emotionalism which modern knowledge has rendered meaningless & even unhealthy. Today we know that the cosmos is simply a flux of purposeless rearrangement amidst which man is a wholly negligible incident or accident. There is no reason why it should be otherwise, or why we should wish it otherwise. All the florid romancing about man's "dignity", "immortality", &c. &c. is simply egotistical delusions plus primitive ignorance. So, too, are the infantile concepts of "sin" or cosmic "right" & "wrong". Actually, organic life on our planet is simply a momentary spark of no importance or meaning whatsoever. Man matters to nobody except himself. Nor are his "noble" imaginative concepts any proof of the objective reality of the things they visualise. Psychologists understand how these concepts are built up out of fragments of experience, instinct, & misapprehension. Man is essentially a machine of a very complex sort, as La Mettrie recognised nearly 2 centuries ago. He arises through certain typical chemical & physical reactions, & his members gradually break down into their constituent parts & vanish from existence. The idea of personal "immortality" is merely the dream of a child or savage. However, there is nothing anti-ethical or anti-social in such a realistic view of things. Although meaning nothing in the cosmos as a whole, mankind obviously means a good deal to itself. Therefore it must be regulated by customs which shall ensure, for its own benefit, the full development of its various accidental potentialities. It has a fortuitous jumble of reactions, some of which it instinctively seeks to heighten & prolong, & some of which it instinctively seeks to shorten or lessen. Also, we see that certain courses of action tend to increase its radius of comprehension & degree of specialised organisation (things usually promoting the wished-for reactions, & in general removing the species from a clod-like, unorganised state), while other courses of action tend to exert an opposite effect. Now since man means nothing to the cosmos, it is plan that his only logical goal (a goal whose sole reference is to himself) is simply the achievement of a reasonable equilibrium which shall enhance his likelihood of experiencing the sort of reactions he wishes, & which shall help along his natural impulse to increase his differentiation from unorganised force & matter. This goal can be reached only through teaching individual men how best to keep out of each other's way, & how best to reconcile the various conflicting instincts which a haphazard cosmic drift has placed within the breast of the same person. Here, then, is a practical & imperative system of ethics, resting on the firmest possible foundation & being essentially that taught by Epicurus & Lucretius. It has no need of supernatualism, & indeed has nothing to do with it.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to Natalie H. Wooley (2 May 1936), in Selected Letters V, 1934-1937 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, pp. 240-241
Non-Fiction, Letters

Life, Men, Children, Truth

“p>Fleas dream of buying themselves a dog, and nobodies dream of escaping poverty: that, one magical day, good luck will suddenly rain down on them - will rain down in buckets. But good luck doesn't rain down, yesterday, today, tomorrow or ever. Good luck doesn't even fall in a fine drizzle, no matter how hard the nobodies summon it, even if their left hand is tickling, or if they begin the new day on their right foot, or start the new year with a change of brooms.The nobodies: nobody's children, owners of nothing. The nobodies: the no-ones, the nobodied, running like rabbits, dying through life, screwed every which way.
Who are not, but could be.
Who don't speak languages, but dialects.
Who don't have religions, but superstitions.
Who don't create art, but handicrafts.
Who don't have culture, but folklore.
Who are not human beings, but human resources.
Who do not have faces, but arms.
Who do not have names, but numbers.
Who do not appear in the history of the world, but in the crime reports of the local paper.
The nobodies, who are not worth the bullet that kills them.”

Eduardo Galeano book The Book of Embraces

The Nobodies; Cied in Mother Jones Magazine (1991) The Book of Embraces. March-April 1991. p. 71
The Book of Embraces (1991)

Life, Children, World, Religion

“"In twenty years," I said, smiling at her tears, "a man grows humble, Mary. I have stored within me a great fund of affection, with nobody to give it to, and I swear to you, on the word of a soldier, that if there is one of those ladies who can be got to care for me I shall be very proud." Despite her semblance of delight I knew that she was wondering at me, and I wondered at myself, but it was true.”

J. M. Barrie book The Little White Bird

Source: The Little White Bird (1902), Ch. 26

Smile, Tear

“In oneself lies the whole world and if you know how to look and learn, the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give you either the key or the door to open, except yourself.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

As quoted in Perfecting Ourselves : Coordinating Body, Mind, and Spirit (2002) by Aaron Hoopes, p. 64
Posthumous publications

World, Learning

“I keep having the same experience and keep resisting it every time. I do not want to believe it although it is palpable: the great majority of people lack an intellectual conscience. Indeed, it has often seemed to me as if anyone calling for an intellectual conscience were as lonely in the most densely populated cities as if he were in a desert. Everybody looks at you with strange eyes and goes right on handling his scales, calling this good and that evil. Nobody even blushes when you intimate that their weights are underweight; nor do people feel outraged; they merely laugh at your doubts. I mean: the great majority of people does not consider it contemptible to believe this or that and to live accordingly, without first having given themselves an account of the final and most certain reasons pro and con, and without even troubling themselves about such reasons afterward: the most gifted men and the noblest women still belong to this "great majority." But what is goodheartedness, refinement, or genius to me, when the person who has these virtues tolerates slack feelings in his faith and judgments and when he does not account the desire for certainty as his inmost craving and deepest distress--as that which separates the higher human beings from the lower.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Sec. 2
The Gay Science (1882)

Women, Men, People, Faith

“There's nobody like Andy, and there never will be. He'll hate hearing this, but he's an American original.”

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

Jeff Fager, Chairman of CBS News and Executive Producer of 60 Minutes — quoted in CNN, Longtime CBS newsman Andy Rooney hospitalized, CNN Wire Staff, October 26, 2011, Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/25/showbiz/andy-rooney-hospitalized/index.html, About

Hate

“Nobody wants to see us together, but it don't matter. No, because I got you babe.”

Akon (1973) singer

Don't Matter
Song lyrics, Konvicted (2006)

“Such an environment of love and affection (at school) had not as yet allowed my life to be exposed to hardships. Depending on others was my habit. You will be surprised to know that prior to my journey to the college I had never bought a train-ticket myself…the very first day I realized that moving out of the controlled school life and stepping into the free college life is no less than inviting all sorts of hassles to yourself. Nobody tells you how to read. Nobody tells you what to do, where to go, when to sleep, and when to wake up. The one who is used to restrictions gets perturbed by this freedom.”

Zakir Hussain (politician) (1897–1969) 3rd President of India

Source: Quest for Truth (1999), pp.32-33.

Love, Life, School, Sleep

“Invisibility. That would be so cool just to go anywhere without people seeing you. You could sneak into rock concerts and films and stuff. And I'd like to have Hagrid's three-head dog, because then nobody would try to fight me. I think I'd love to be a wizard in Harry's world, even though you have to face a lot of danger.”

Daniel Radcliffe (1989) English actor

On what magical power would Daniel like to have

Love, People, World, Dogs

“I could have done nothing more worthwhile than to give a new description of the whole human body, of which nobody understood the anatomy, while Galen, despite his extensive writings, has offered very little on the subject.”

Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564) early anatomist

Letter on the China Root, quoted in O'Malley 1964, p. 222

“Knowledge is not something which exists and grows in the abstract. It is a function of human organisms and of social organization. Knowledge, that is to say, is always what somebody knows: the most perfect transcript of knowledge in writing is not knowledge if nobody knows it. Knowledge however grows by the receipt of meaningful information - that is, by the intake of messages by a knower which are capable of reorganising his knowledge.”

Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist

Source: 1950s, General Systems Theory - The Skeleton of Science, 1956, p. 197

Knowledge, Perfection

“We are all aware, if we have ever tried it, how empty and ghostly is a life lived for a long while in absolute solitude. Free me from my fellows, let me alone to work out the salvation of my own glorious self, and surely (so I may fancy) I shall now for the first time show who I am. No, not so; on the contrary I merely show in such a case who I am not. I am no longer friend, brother, companion, co-worker, servant, citizen, father, son; I exist for nobody; and ere-long, perhaps to my surprise, generally to my horror, I discover that I am nobody.”

Josiah Royce (1855–1916) United States philosopher

Lecture on Hegel

Life, Solitude, Time

“If you accept the ordinary laws of science, you have to suppose that human life and life in general on this planet will die out in due course: it is a stage in the decay of the solar system… You see in the moon the sort of thing to which the earth is tending – something dead, cold, and lifeless.
I am told that that sort of view is depressing, and people will sometimes tell you that if they believed that, they would not be able to go on living. Do not believe it; it is all nonsense. Nobody really worries much about what is going to happen millions of years hence. Even if they think they are worrying much about that, they are really deceiving themselves. They are worried about something much more mundane, or it may merely be a bad digestion; but nobody is really seriously rendered unhappy by the thought of something that is going to happen to this world millions and millions of years hence. Therefore, although it is of course a gloomy view to suppose that life will die out – at least I suppose we may say so, although sometimes when I contemplate the things that people do with their lives I think it is almost a consolation – it is not such as to render life miserable. It merely makes you turn your attention to other things.”

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

"The Argument from Design"
1920s, Why I Am Not a Christian (1927)

Life, People, World, Law

“Many books in my library are now behind and beneath me. They were good in their way once, and so were the clothes I wore when I was ten years old; but I have outgrown them. Nobody ever outgrows Scripture; the book widens and deepens with our years.”

Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) British preacher, author, pastor and evangelist

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 37.

Books, Way, Clothes

“Nobody is forgotten, when it is convenient to remember him.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: Letter to Lord Stanhope (17 July 1870), cited in William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, Vol. 5 (1920), p. 123-125.

“The truth is, he's a nasty guy. He was so nice to me. I mean, I knew it. I was watching. I kept saying, 'Come on Ted. Let's go, okay.' But he's a nasty guy. Nobody likes him. Nobody in Congress likes him. Nobody likes him anywhere once they get to know him. He's a very –- he's got an edge that's not good. You can't make deals with people like that and it's not a good thing. It's not a good thing for the country. Very nasty guy.”

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

About Ted Cruz in an interview on This Week http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/01/17/donald_trump_ted_cruz_is_a_nasty_guy_nobody_likes_him.html (January 17, 2016) 2010s, 2016, January

People, Truth, Guy, Country