Quotes about nobody
page 8

George W. Bush photo

“Nobody ever stopped reading E. B. White or V. S. Pritchett because the writing was too good.”

William Zinsser (1922–2015) writer, editor, journalist, literary critic, professor

Source: On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976), Chapter 13, Bits & Pieces, p. 130.

Ken Kutaragi photo

“I believe we made the most beautiful thing in the world. Nobody would criticize a renowned architect's blueprint that the position of a gate is wrong. It's the same as that.”

Ken Kutaragi (1950) Japanese businessman

In response to the original PSP units' square button problems https://www.gamespot.com/articles/gamers-report-psp-malfunction/1100-6116985/

Prem Rawat photo
Mallika Sherawat photo
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg photo
John Constable photo

“My art flatters nobody by imitation, it courts nobody by smoothness, nobody by petitelieness without either fal-de-lal or fiddle-de-dee; how then can I hope to be popular?”

John Constable (1776–1837) English Romantic painter

Quote from John Constable's letter to Mr. C.R. Leslie 22 June 1832
1830s

David Graeber photo

“Consumer debt is the lifeblood of our economy. All modern nation states are built on deficit spending. Debt has come to be the central issue of international politics. But nobody seems to know exactly what it is, or how to think about it.”

David Graeber (1961) American anthropologist and anarchist

Source: Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011), Chapter One, "On The Experience of Moral Confusion", p. 4

J. C. Watts photo
Roberto Clemente photo

“I was mad last year. I played as well as anyone else on our team and I didn't receive one vote for MVP. Don't get me wrong; I didn't say I was the best last year or that I should have won the MVP award. But nobody seemed to care about me. But you win the batting title yourself. They can't take that away from you.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in "Clemente Will Seek Raise in Pay Next Year" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=eHQlAAAAIBAJ&sjid=zfIFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1095%2C1859848 by Lou Prato, in The Gettysburg Times (Tuesday, October 3, 1961), p. 5
Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1961</big>

Peter Sloterdijk photo
Thomas Hardy photo
Maggie Gyllenhaal photo
Robert A. Heinlein photo

“Nobody ever wins a lawsuit but the lawyers.”

Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) American science fiction author

Source: The Door Into Summer (1957), Chapter 2

Billy Joel photo

“I'm so romantic
I'm such a passionate man
Sometimes I panic
What if nobody finds out who I am?”

Billy Joel (1949) American singer-songwriter and pianist

Big Man on Mulberry Street.
Song lyrics, The Bridge (1986)

Samuel Beckett photo
Donald J. Trump photo
Mel Gibson photo
Joseph Conrad photo
John Howard photo

“I don't think it is wrong, racist, immoral or anything, for a country to say 'we will decide what the cultural identity and the cultural destiny of this country will be and nobody else.”

John Howard (1939) 25th Prime Minister of Australia

Quoted in "Howard reasserts right to decide cultural identity," The Age, 20 September 1988.

Frank Buckles photo

“I didn't lie; nobody calls me a liar, I may have increased my age.”

Frank Buckles (1901–2011) United States Army soldier and centenarian

Joking on joining the Army at age 15.
CNN March 8, 2008.

Gertrude Stein photo

“In the United States there is more space where nobody is than where anybody is. This is what makes America what it is.”

Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) American art collector and experimental writer of novels, poetry and plays

The Geographical History of America (1936)

Donald J. Trump photo

“So I said to myself, you know, nobody's ever going to know unless I run, because I'm really proud of my success.”

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

Announcement speech https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-donald-trump-helped-democrats-pass-obamacare/2015/06/22/002f4c7c-18ea-11e5-ab92-c75ae6ab94b5_story.html (June 2015)
2010s, 2015

Alice A. Bailey photo
Gore Vidal photo
Friedrich Hayek photo
Johan Cruyff photo
James Taylor photo
Anke Engelke photo

“Tonight, nobody could vote for their own country, but it is good to be able to vote and it is good to have a choice. Good luck on your journey, Azerbaijan. Europe is watching you!”

Anke Engelke (1965) German actress

"Heute Abend konnte niemand für sein eigenes Land abstimmen. Aber es ist gut wählen zu können, und es ist gut eine Wahl zu haben. Viel Glück auf Deiner Reise, Aserbaidschan. Europa beobachtet Dich!"
Anke Engelke's jab at Azerbaijan's dictatorship, while actually announcing the German vote in the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest. Transmitted live on TV to 120 million viewers, including the Azerbaijan state TV. (May 26th, 2012).

Bertolt Brecht photo

“Worship with fulness of heart the weak memory of heaven!
It cannot trace
Either your name or your face
Nobody knows you're still living.”

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

"Great hymn of thanksgiving" [Grosser Dankchoral] (1920) from The Devotions (1922-1927); trans. Karl Neumann in Poems, 1913-1956, p. 74
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)

Phil Brooks photo
Linus Torvalds photo
Jamal Simmons photo

“I think nobody really loves America more than black Americans, because black Americans loved America even when America didn’t love us back”

Jamal Simmons (1971) American journalist

Simmons at the Canadian-American Business Council luncheon. 2008-11-13 http://eaves.ca/2008/11/14/quote-of-the-day

Linus Torvalds photo
Orson Scott Card photo
Gay Talese photo
Richard Feynman photo
Tony Blair photo

“The reason we are finding it hard to win this battle is that we're not actually fighting it properly. We're not actually standing up to these people and saying, "It's not just your methods that are wrong, your ideas are absurd. Nobody is oppressing you. Your sense of grievance isn't justified."”

Tony Blair (1953) former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

" Blair launches stinging attack on 'absurd' British Islamists http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,,2115929,00.html", 1 July 2007.
Remarks made on the eve of his departure from Downing Street, 26 June 2007.
2000s

Orson Welles photo
Charles Stross photo

“Well, moving swiftly sideways into cognitive neuroscience…In the past twenty years we’ve made huge strides, using imaging tools, direct brain interfaces, and software simulations. We’ve pretty much disproved the existence of free will, at least as philosophers thought they understood it. A lot of our decision-making mechanics are subconscious; we only become aware of our choices once we’ve begun to act on them. And a whole lot of other things that were once thought to correlate with free will turn out also to be mechanical. If we use transcranial magnetic stimulation to disrupt the right temporoparietal junction, we can suppress subjects’ ability to make moral judgements; we can induce mystical religious experiences: We can suppress voluntary movements, and the patients will report that they didn’t move because they didn’t want to move. The TMPJ finding is deeply significant in the philosophy of law, by the way: It strongly supports the theory that we are not actually free moral agents who make decisions—such as whether or not to break the law—of our own free will.
“In a nutshell, then, what I’m getting at is that the project of law, ever since the Code of Hammurabi—the entire idea that we can maintain social order by obtaining voluntary adherence to a code of permissible behaviour, under threat of retribution—is fundamentally misguided.” His eyes are alight; you can see him in the Cartesian lecture-theatre of your mind, pacing door-to-door as he addresses his audience. “If people don’t have free will or criminal intent in any meaningful sense, then how can they be held responsible for their actions? And if the requirements of managing a complex society mean the number of laws have exploded until nobody can keep track of them without an expert system, how can people be expected to comply with them?”

Source: Rule 34 (2011), Chapter 26, “Liz: It’s Complicated” (pp. 286-287)

Robert Schumann photo

“In order to compose, all you need to do is remember a tune that nobody else has thought of.”

Robert Schumann (1810–1856) German composer, aesthete and influential music critic

Quoted in: Dictionary of Humorous Quotations, Evan Esar (ed.), 1949, p. 156.

Donald J. Trump photo
Learned Hand photo
Larry Wall photo

“Life gets boring, someone invents another necessity, and once again we turn the crank on the screwjack of progress hoping that nobody gets screwed.”

Larry Wall (1954) American computer programmer and author, creator of Perl

[199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org, 1997]
Usenet postings, 1997

Amitabh Bachchan photo

“I know that there are a lot of areas inside me which I need to analyse. But I need time. I can't be rushed into it. Even if it keeps lingering in the back of my mind always. I keep joking, fooling around on the sets, trying to push everything away for a later day scrutiny. I don't even want to acknowledge those dark corners of my insides as yet. And if at all I do it, I'll do it for no one else but myself. Not my wife, not my parents. Maybe my children - maybe just my son. Nobody else. Of course, there is also another way of looking at things. Supposing I did not have this pressure of talking to the media, maybe people like you and others would have always thought of me as somebody else. I don't know what opinion of me you have now. I don't know what you felt before you met me, how you felt while you were interviewing me and how you feel today and how you'll feel tomorrow. But I'm sure there will be a difference. Because forming an opinion without meeting a person and judging your instincts and impressions after meeting him are two different things. Most people I've met of late have gone back thinking exactly the contrary of what they thought earlier. I've tried to be as honest as I can with you. I can tell you that I've never spoken like this to anyone before. I wonder if you're convinced. You don't look it. Maybe I will convince you someday.”

Amitabh Bachchan (1942) Indian actor

Quotable quotes by Amitabh Bachchan.

Daniel Dennett photo
Jonathan Edwards photo
Miriam Makeba photo
Margot Asquith photo

“Lloyd George? There is no Lloyd George. There is a marvellous brain; but if you were to shut him in a room and look through the keyhole there would be nobody there.”

Margot Asquith (1864–1945) Anglo-Scottish socialite, author and wit

In conversation with James Agate, September 30, 1941; reported by Agate in his Ego 5 (London: Harrap, 1942) p. 136.
Sometimes also attributed to John Maynard Keynes.

Wu Jingzi photo

“He seemed to feel something like indulgent contempt for the rest of the world. It was all right, I suppose. Nobody had better reason. The man was a genius.”

Henry Kuttner (1915–1958) American author

Source: The Time Axis (1949), Ch. 2 : The Stain and the Stone

Cyrano de Bergerac photo
Joseph Beuys photo
Camille Pissarro photo

“I well remember that around 1874, Duret, who is above reproach, Duret himself said to me with all sorts of circumlocutions that I was on the wrong track, that everyone thought so, including my best friends… I admit that when alone, with nobody to prompt me, I reproached myself similarly, - I plumbed myself, - decision was terribly hard. - Should I, yes or no, persevere [or seek] another way? I concluded in the affirmative, I took into account the risks of the unknown, and I was right to stick.”

Camille Pissarro (1830–1903) French painter

Quote of Camille Pissarro, Paris, 9 May 1883, in a letter to his son Lucien; from Camille Pissarro - Letters to His Son Lucien ed. John Rewald, with assistance of Lucien Pissarro; from the unpublished French letters; transl. Lionel Abel; Pantheon Books Inc. New York, second edition, 1943, pp. 30-31
Duret in letters urged Pissarro to abandon the impressionist group and to try to be admitted to the official Salon where his work would be seen by forty thousand people. Duret advises him to make 'paintings which have a subject, something resembling composition, pictures not too freshly painted' (from note 1. John Rewald)
1880's

Ben Hecht photo
Marilyn Manson photo

“At that period, everybody in the Roman Empire had some kind of religion, but nobody bothered much about it. Just like today. …Although Romans had plenty of gods, in reality they believed in none.”

Wilhelm Busch (pastor) (1897–1966) German pastor and writer

Things have got to change -but how? It's Either this or that! p. 146 Walking with God is no illusion. p. 208
Jesus Our Destiny

“Everyone wants to meet Superman but nobody wants to meet Clark Kent.”

Erika Jayne (1969) American singer, actress and television personality

TedxPasadena speech (2018)

Hunter S. Thompson photo
Kapil Dev photo
Jesse Jackson photo

“If my mind can conceive it, if my heart can believe it, I know I can achieve it because I am somebody!
Respect me! Protect me! Never neglect me!
I am somebody!
My mind is a pearl! I can learn anything in the world!
Nobody can save us, from us, for us, but us!
I can learn. It is possible.
I ought to learn. It is moral.
I must learn. It is imperative.”

Jesse Jackson (1941) African-American civil rights activist and politician

Speech at Anderson College in Anderson, Indiana (4 March 1979), quoted in Psychology Through the Eyes of Faith (1987) by David G. Myers and Malcolm A. Jeeves. The first sentence is a modification of a quote by Napoleon Hill: "Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve."

Alice Cooper photo

“Nobody and nothing beats The Simpsons. Even after all this time, it's still the best satire since Monty Python.”

Alice Cooper (1948) American rock singer, songwriter and musician

Interview with Nick Harper in The Guardian (28 November 2003).

Sinclair Lewis photo
Drashti Dhami photo

“I don’t know about that because nobody said anything to me on my face. And if I was being favoured, I would have just come for a couple of hours for the shoot and gone. Instead, I used to be on the sets for more than six hours, rehearsing, performing and then rushing off for my Madhubala shoot!”

Drashti Dhami (1985) Indian television actress and model

At some point your co-contestants felt that you were being favoured http://www.dnaindia.com/entertainment/interview-i-was-in-another-zone-reveals-jhalak-dikhla-jaa-6-winner-drashti-dhami-1890057

Ken Livingstone photo
Lima Barreto photo
Toni Morrison photo

“You free. Nothing and nobody is obliged to save you but you.”

Home (novella), p. 126 (2012)

Mikhail Leontyev photo

“English: Only a total idiot would think that a major channel is working to inform the audience. The channel sells product, it must be packaged. CNN, for example, is a colossal ideological tool in the West. An excellent example is the situation around Yugoslavia. How effectively a very civilized part of humankind was brainwashed! The question is in approaches. If a consumer "grubs" stale bread, nobody will offer him poppy-seed buns. I'm an absolutely engaged person. By myself. I have certain political views. I'm not a journalist. I practice political propaganda. I am a commentator, and if one comments on events without having one's own position, that's an unhealthy symptom.”

Mikhail Leontyev (1958) Russian television pundit

Только полный идиот может думать, что крупный канал готов работать ради информирования зрителя. Канал продает продукт, его надо паковать. CNN, к примеру, является на Западе колоссальным идеологическим инструментом. Яркий пример тому - ситуация вокруг Югославии. Как эффектно промыли мозги очень цивилизованной части человечества! Вопрос в методах. Если потребитель "хавает" черствый хлеб, никто не будет давать ему булочки с маком. Я человек ангажированный абсолютно. Самим собой. У меня есть конкретные политические взгляды. Я не журналист. Я занимаюсь политической пропагандой. Я комментатор, и если человек комментирует события, не имея своей позиции, то это явление болезненное.
Михаил Леонтьев: 'Придется стать придурком', Chelpress.ru (Mass Media of Chelyabinsk), 2000-06-29, 2007-03-25 http://www.chelpress.ru/newspapers/vecherka/archive/29-06-2000/9/2.DOC.shtml,

Muhammad photo
Gaurav Sharma (author) photo
Samuel Johnson photo
Steve Jobs photo

“Nobody has tried to swallow us since I've been here. I think they are afraid how we would taste.”

Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.

At the annual Apple shareholder meeting (22 April 1998)
1990s

Clive Staples Lewis photo
Gore Vidal photo
Peter F. Drucker photo
Calvin Coolidge photo

“A colored man is precisely as much entitled to submit his candidacy in a party primary, as is any other citizen. The decision must be made by the constituents to whom he offers himself, and by nobody else.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Letter to Charles F. Gardner (1924)

Willis Lamb photo

“In fact, there really is not a new law of nature. It was all in the theory to begin with but nobody worked it out.”

Willis Lamb (1913–2008) American Physicist

relating his experimental confirmation of the fine structure spectrum of hydrogen, as reported by [Jagdish Mehra, The historical development of quantum theory, Springer, 2001, 0387950869, 1037]

Jean-Pierre Serre photo
Chiaki Mukai photo
Skye Sweetnam photo

“Our bios are sort of similar, but guys in rock bands all wear T-shirts and jeans and nobody ever says they're all the same.”

Skye Sweetnam (1988) Canadian singer-songwriter

On constantly being compared to Avril Lavigne

Samuel Johnson photo

“He who praises everybody praises nobody.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

Johnson's Works (1787), vol. XI, p. 216; This set included the Life of Samuel Johnson by Sir John Hawkins

Leopoldo Galtieri photo

“Personally, I judged that a British retaliation was improbable. However, I never expected such a disproportionate response. Nobody expected it. Why would a nation in the heart of Europe be affected by some distant islands in the Atlantic which serve no national interest? I don't think it makes sense.”

Leopoldo Galtieri (1926–2003) Argentine military dictator

Reportaje de Oriana Fallaci a Leopoldo F. Galtieri http://archivohistorico.educ.ar/content/reportaje-de-oriana-fallaci-leopoldo-f-galtieri#sthash.ZQrMQt2O.dpuf, Revista El porteño, August 1982

Norodom Sihanouk photo

“I want my country to be independent, always independent. I have to defend my convictions as a patriot and as a national leader. I have done my best, but as a human being I cannot be perfect, nobody is perfect.”

Norodom Sihanouk (1922–2012) Cambodian King

As quoted by David Ablin and Marlowe Hood (March 14, 1985), "The Lesser Evil: An Interview with Norodom Sihanouk" http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1985/mar/14/the-lesser-evil-an-interview-with-norodom-sihanouk/?pagination=false, The New York Review of Books.
Interviews

Peter D. Schiff photo
Ron White photo
Studs Terkel photo
Bill Engvall photo
Robert Patrick (playwright) photo

“I want to give [my records] all away before some fool plays disco at my funeral, and then the record gets stuck, and nobody can tell, and the service goes on forever!”

Robert Patrick (playwright) (1937) Playwright, poet, lyricist, short story writer, novelist

"Pouf Positive"
Untold Decades: Seven Comedies of Gay Romance (1988)

Louis Riel photo