Quotes about other
page 58

“There is little consolation in the fact that millions of people are unhappier than we are. Why should other people's misery make us happier or more content?”

Azar Nafisi (1955) Iranaian academic and writer

People

“All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2003)

Children, Youth, Parent, Help

“We are healed to help others. We are blessed to be a blessing. We are saved to serve, not to sit around and wait for heaven.”

Rick Warren (1954) Christian religious leader

Source: The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?

Waiting, Help

“And remember, my sentimental friend, that a heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others.”

L. Frank Baum book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

this is a line spoken by Frank Morgan's depiction of the Wizard of Oz in the 1939 film, which debuted 20 years after Baum's death. It did not actually appear in the "Wonderful Wizard of Oz". The ending of "Steam Engines of Oz" wrongly attributes this phrase to Baum when it would've originated from the 1939 adaptation script writers Langley/Ryerson/Woolf.
Misattributed
Variant: A heart is not judged by how much you love; but by how much you are loved by others
Source: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Love, Heart

“We cannot trample upon the humanity of others without devaluing our own. The Igbo, always practical, put it concretely in their proverb"He who will hold another down in the mud must stay in the mud to keep him down.”

Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic

Source: The Education of a British-Protected Child: Essays

“Besides love and sympathy, animals exhibit other qualities connected with the social instincts which in us would be called moral.”

Charles Darwin book The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex

volume I, chapter III: "Comparison of the Mental Powers of Man and the Lower Animals — continued", pages 100-101 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=113&itemID=F937.1&viewtype=image The Descent of Man (1871) Context: As man advances in civilisation, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all the members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. This point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men of all nations and races. If, indeed, such men are separated from him by great differences in appearance or habits, experience unfortunately shews us how long it is before we look at them as our fellow-creatures. Sympathy beyond the confines of man, that is humanity to the lower animals, seems to be one of the latest moral acquisitions. It is apparently unfelt by savages, except towards their pets. How little the old Romans knew of it is shewn by their abhorrent gladiatorial exhibitions. The very idea of humanity, as far as I could observe, was new to most of the Gauchos of the Pampas. This virtue, one of the noblest with which man is endowed, seems to arise incidentally from our sympathies becoming more tender and more widely diffused, until they are extended to all sentient beings. As soon as this virtue is honoured and practised by some few men, it spreads through instruction and example to the young, and eventually through public opinion.

Love, Animals

“To me, there's nothing on earth other than women. It's why I get out of bed every morning.”

James Ellroy (1948) Novelist, short story writer, essayist, memoirist

Women

“For it is often the way we look at other people that imprisons them within their own narrowest allegiances. And it is also the way we look at them that may set them free.”

Amin Maalouf book In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong

Source: In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong

People, Way

“The mystery in how little we know of other people is no greater than the mystery of how much, Laurel thought.”

Eudora Welty book The Optimist's Daughter

Source: The Optimist's Daughter

People

“How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.”

Adam Smith book The Theory of Moral Sentiments

Section I, Chap. I.
The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), Part I

Happiness, Pleasure, Nature, Selfishness

“Friends see most of each other’s flaws. Spouses see every awful last bit.”

Gillian Flynn book Gone Girl

Source: Gone Girl

“I'm not sure what I am anymore… Sometimes I think I'm nothing but what other people have done to me―a big collection of brainwashing, surgeries, and cures… That, and all the mistakes I've made. All the people I've disappointed.”

Scott Westerfeld book Specials

Source: Specials

People, Disappointment, Thinking

“We are here on earth to do good to others. What the others are here for, I do not know.”

Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools

Source: Essays In Criticism By Matthew Arnold

“i do it for the joy it brings
because i'm a joyful girl
because the world owes me nothing
and we owe each other the world”

Ani DiFranco (1970) musician and activist

World, Girl, Joy

“Christians get very angry toward other Christians who sin differently than they do.”

Philip Yancey (1949) American writer

“I wanted all of her and resented other boys for wanting any part of her.”

Jonathan Franzen (1959) novelist

Source: The Discomfort Zone: A Personal Journey

Boy, Parting

“When you accept a leadership role, you take on extra responsibility for your actions toward others.”

Kelley Armstrong (1968) Canadian writer

Source: The Calling

“Sometimes our strengths are also our weaknesses. Sometimes to be strong you have to first be weak. You have to share your burdens; you have to lean on other people while you face your problems and yourself.”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

Source: The Christmas Sweater

People, Problem, Strong

“Our creed [atheism] is indeed a queer creed. You others, Christians (and similar people), consider our ethics much inferior, indeed abominable. There is that little difference. We adhere to ours in practice, you don't.”

Erwin Schrödinger (1887–1961) Austrian physicist

Source: A Life of Erwin Schrödinger

People

“Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and their freedoms”

Robert A. Heinlein book Starship Troopers

Source: Starship Troopers

Truth, History, Thinking, Freedom

“other people maay be there to help us, teach us, guide us aolng our path, But the lesson to be learned is always ours”

Melody Beattie (1948) American writer

People, Learning, Help

“When I paint, the Sea Roars
Others Splash about in the bath”

Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) Spanish artist

Painting, Sea

“It has forever been thus: So long as men write what they think, then all of the other freedoms - all of them - may remain intact. And it is then that writing becomes a weapon of truth, an article of faith, an act of courage.”

Rod Serling (1924–1975) American screenwriter

Men, Truth, Faith, Courage

“It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable it is, nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.”

Martha Graham (1894–1991) American dancer and choreographer

Business

“In everyone there sleeps
A sense of life lived according to love.
To some it means the difference they could make
By loving others, but across most it sweeps,
As all they might have done had they been loved.
That nothing cures.”

Philip Larkin (1922–1985) English poet, novelist, jazz critic and librarian

Love, Life, Sense, Sleep

“I have had just about enough of other guys trying to turn you, Raven. There is only one vampire who will," he said confidently. "The one who you were always meant for-me.”

Ellen Schreiber (1967) American writer

Source: Immortal Hearts

Guy, Confidence

“Do unto others as they wish, but with imagination.”

Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) French painter and sculptor

Imagination

“I am wholly yours - you are everything to me; we will sustain each other in all the ills of life it may please fate to inflict upon us; you will soothe my troubles; I will comfort you in yours.”

Denis Diderot (1713–1784) French Enlightenment philosopher and encyclopædist

Life, Fate

“Writing is one of the few careers for which you essentially train yourself, the other two major ones being juggling and pickpocketing.”

Maureen Johnson (1973) writer from the USA

Training

“I am not commanding you, but I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it to the earnestness of others.”

Nicholas Sparks book A Walk to Remember

Source: A Walk to Remember

Love, Sincerity

“Why do people want to talk to each other? I mean, what are the things people always want to find out about other people?”

Shirley Jackson book The Haunting of Hill House

Source: The Haunting of Hill House

People

“It's possible to pretend I'm someone other than who I am, and if I pretend long enough, I can believe it.”

Libba Bray A Great and Terrible Beauty

Source: A Great and Terrible Beauty

“We gained control of many things. But we had to let go of others.”

Lois Lowry book The Giver

Source: The Giver

“Fear can’t be reasoned with. Neither can hate. They’re like love. They’re almost identical emotions. That’s why Ares and Aphrodite like each other. Their twin sons – Fear and Panic – were spawned from both war and love.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

Love, Hate, War, Fear

“Life is easier when you can write off others as monsters, demon, as horrible threats that must be hated and feared the thing is you can't do that without becoming them, just a little.”

Jim Butcher book White Night

Source: White Night

Life, Hate, Fear

“The nuclear arms race is like two sworn enemies standing waist deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

“The unselfish effort to bring cheer to others will be the beginning of a happier life for ourselves.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

Life, Effort

“The truth is we never stop being children, terrible children covered in sores and knotty veins and tumors and age spots, but ultimately children, in other words we never stop clinging to life because we are life.”

Roberto Bolaño book 2666

Source: 2666

Life, Children, Truth, Age

“Imagining what it is like to be someone other than yourself is at the core of our humanity. It is the essence of compassion and the beginning of morality”

Ian McEwan (1948) British author

Imagination

“Love dies in many different ways, and it's natural for the grass to seem greener on the other side. But it's not a competition; there's plenty of pain to go around.”

Rob Sheffield (1966) American music journalist

Source: Love Is a Mix Tape

Love, Pain, Way, Nature

“You are your own worst enemy. If you can learn to stop expecting impossible perfection, in yourself and others, you may find the happiness that has always eluded you.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Love in the Afternoon

Happiness, Learning, Perfection

“That is certainly one way to look at the matter. There are others.”

Patricia C. Wrede (1953) author

Source: Thirteenth Child

Way

“I believe that treating other people well is a lost art.”

Tim Gunn (1953) American actor and fashion consultant

Source: Gunn's Golden Rules: Life's Little Lessons for Making It Work

People, Art

“In the end, the wind takes everything, doesn't it? And why not? Why other? If the sweetness of our lives did not depart, there would be no sweetness at all.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Source: The Wind Through the Keyhole

“If you focus on sandbagging the beachhead, you can ignore the tsunami that's approaching. Try it any other way and you'll go crazy.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

Way

“Don’t you study about other folks’s business till you take care of your own.”

Harper Lee book Go Set a Watchman

Source: Go Set a Watchman

Business, Study

“Witihin seconds the headhunter had lost control of his car and it squealed, sliding sideways right into several other cars.
Cool!' said the Gasman.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: School's Out—Forever

Cars

“people are not good to each other.
perhaps if they were
our deaths would not be so sad.”

Charles Bukowski book Love Is a Dog from Hell

Source: Love Is a Dog from Hell

Death, People, Sadness

“The most amazing fact about Jesus, unlike almost any other religious founder, is that he found God in disorder and imperfection—and told us that we must do the same or we would never be content on this earth.”

Richard Rohr (1943) American spiritual writer, speaker, teacher, Catholic Franciscan priest

Source: The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See

God

“So please don't think that I am renouncing anything, I am reasonably faithful in my unfaithfulness and though I have changed, I am the same, and what preys on my mind is simply this one question: what am I good for, could I not be of service or use in some way, how can I become more knowledgeable and study some subject or other in depth?”

Vincent Van Gogh book The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

1880s, 1880, Letter to Theo (Cuesmes, July 1880)
Source: The Letters of Vincent van Gogh
Context: So please don't think that I am renouncing anything, I am reasonably faithful in my unfaithfulness and though I have changed, I am the same, and what preys on my mind is simply this one question: what am I good for, could I not be of service or use in some way, how can I become more knowledgeable and study some subject or other in depth? That is what keeps preying on my mind, you see, and then one feels imprisoned by poverty, barred from taking part in this or that project and all sorts of necessities are out of one's reach. As a result one cannot rid oneself of melancholy, one feels emptiness where there might have been friendship and sublime and genuine affection, and one feels dreadful disappointment gnawing at one's spiritual energy, fate seems to stand in the way of affection or one feels a wave of disgust welling up inside. And then one says “How long, my God!”

Unfaithfulness, Faith, Way, Question

“We awaken in others the same attitude of mind we hold toward them.”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

“The brain is wider than the sky,
For, put them side by side,
The one the other will include
With ease, and you beside.”

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet

“One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation and compassion.”

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist

As quoted in Successful Aging : A Conference Report (1974) by Eric Pfeiffer, p. 142
Attributed

Love, Life, Friendship

“There is as much difference between us and ourselves as between us and others.”

Michel De Montaigne book Essays

Book II (1580), Ch. 1
Essais (1595), Book II

“The truth is that I hate to think about other people reading my books," Miranda said. "It's like watching someone go through the box of private stuff that I keep under my bed.”

Madeleine L'Engle book A Wrinkle in Time

Source: A Wrinkle in Time

Hate, People, Truth, Books

“Are you her boyfriend?”
…
No, I’m her fiancé.” Nate said.
We’ve been promised to each other since birth,” Summer added.
Our wedding isn’t until March.”

Brandon Mull The Candy Shop War

Source: The Candy Shop War

Birth, Wedding, Summer

“Terry was beside himself. Not literally. This story would be that much more painful if there were two Terrys, able to stand next to each other and simultaneously curse Leven.”

Obert Skye book Leven Thumps and the Whispered Secret

Source: Leven Thumps and the Whispered Secret

Pain

“Some secrets, she thought, were better told; some were better left the burden of the carrier, that they might not cause pain to others.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

Pain, Secret

“But hardly anybody ever finds out that their actions really, actually, hurt other people! People don’t get better, they just get smarter. When you get smarter you don’t stop pulling the wings off flies, you just think of better reasons for doing it.”

Stephen King book Carrie

Source: Carrie

People, Thinking, Hurt

“You have to accept that sometimes that's how things happen in this world. People's opinions, their feelings, they go one way, then the other. It just so happens you grew up at a certain point in this process.”

Kazuo Ishiguro book Never Let Me Go

Source: Never Let Me Go

People, World, Way, Feeling

“Maybe it’s that I find it hard to forgive the follies and vices of others, or their offenses against me. My good opinion, once lost, is lost forever.”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

Forgiveness

“Theoretically the planet could suddenly crack in half, leaving me on one side and you on the other side, forever and tragically parted, but I’m not worried about that, either. Some things,” Jace said”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Parting

“Loveless work, boring work, work valued only because others haven't got even that much, however loveless and boring--this is one of the harshest human miseries.”

Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) Polish writer

“Resolved, always to do that, which I shall wish I had done when I see others do it.”

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) Christian preacher, philosopher, and theologian

No. 69.
Seventy Resolutions (1722-1723)

“I took the other road, all right, but only because it was the easy road for me, the way I wanted to go. If I've encountered some unnecessary resistance that's because most of the traffic is going the other way.”

Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist

Source: Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast

Way

“If I now recognize evil in other people, is it not because I have become evil too?”

Amy Tan The Joy Luck Club

Source: The Joy Luck Club

People, Evil

“If you're afraid to die, you're afraid to live. You can't have one without the other.”

Rita Mae Brown (1944) Novelist, poet, screenwriter, activist

“A mind at peace a mind centered and not focused on harming others is stronger than any physical force in the universe.”

Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015) American writer

Peace, Universe

“I'm holding back, delaying the information. I'm lingering in the prior moment because it was a time when other outcomes were still possible.”

Ian McEwan book Enduring Love

Source: Enduring Love

Time

“A pastor should never complain about his congregation, certainly never to other people, but also not to God. A congregation has not been entrusted to him in order that he should become its accuser before God and men.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

Source: Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community

Men, God, People

“Happiness is feeling useful to others.”

François Lelord book Hector and the Search for Happiness

Source: Hector and the Search for Happiness

Happiness, Feeling, Happy, Relationship

“An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a definite proposition… A contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of anything the other person says."

No, it's not…”

Graham Chapman (1941–1989) English comedian, writer and actor

Personality

“It happened again this afternoon. Just the way it did that other night. We were talking--talking about how to protect her, actually--and then, suddenly, I looked at her and it was as if I'd found an entire universe in her eyes.”

Cate Tiernan (1961) American novelist

Source: Awakening

Way, Universe, Night

“Selfish, adj. Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others.”

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)
Source: The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

Selfishness

“Until we learn to love others as ourselves, it's difficult to blame broken people who desperately try to affirm themselves when no one else will.”

Richard Rohr (1943) American spiritual writer, speaker, teacher, Catholic Franciscan priest

Source: Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

Love, People, Learning

“Though liberals do a great deal of talking about hearing other points of view, it sometimes shocks them to learn that there are other points of view.”

William F. Buckley Jr. (1925–2008) American conservative author and commentator

Up from Liberalism (1959); also quoted in The American Dissent : A Decade of Modern Conservatism (1966) by Jeffrey Peter Hart, p. 171 Variants: Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views. As quoted in The Nastiest Things Ever Said about Democrats (2006) by Martin Higgins, p. 93 Liberals do a great deal of talking about hearing other points of view, but it sometimes shocks them to learn that there are other points of view. As quoted in his obituary in The TImes (28 February 2008) http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article3447250.ece.

Learning