Quotes about selling
page 5

George William Curtis photo

“For what do we now see in the country? We see a man who, as Senator of the United States, voted to tamper with the public mails for the benefit of slavery, sitting in the President's chair. Two days after he is seated we see a judge rising in the place of John Jay — who said, 'Slaves, though held by the laws of men, are free by the laws of God' — to declare that a seventh of the population not only have no original rights as men, but no legal rights as citizens. We see every great office of State held by ministers of slavery; our foreign ambassadors not the representatives of our distinctive principle, but the eager advocates of the bitter anomaly in our system, so that the world sneers as it listens and laughs at liberty. We see the majority of every important committee of each house of Congress carefully devoted to slavery. We see throughout the vast ramification of the Federal system every little postmaster in every little town professing loyalty to slavery or sadly holding his tongue as the price of his salary, which is taxed to propagate the faith. We see every small Custom-House officer expected to carry primary meetings in his pocket and to insult at Fourth-of-July dinners men who quote the Declaration of Independence. We see the slave-trade in fact, though not yet in law, reopened — the slave-law of Virginia contesting the freedom of the soil of New York We see slave-holders in South Carolina and Louisiana enacting laws to imprison and sell the free citizens of other States. Yes, and on the way to these results, at once symptoms and causes, we have seen the public mails robbed — the right of petition denied — the appeal to the public conscience made by the abolitionists in 1833 and onward derided and denounced, and their very name become a byword and a hissing. We have seen free speech in public and in private suppressed, and a Senator of the United States struck down in his place for defending liberty. We have heard Mr. Edward Everett, succeeding brave John Hancock and grand old Samuel Adams as governor of the freest State in history, say in his inaugural address in 1836 that all discussion of the subject which tends to excite insurrection among the slaves, as if all discussion of it would not be so construed, 'has been held by highly respectable legal authorities an offence against the peace of the commonwealth, which may be prosecuted as a misdemeanor at common law'. We have heard Daniel Webster, who had once declared that the future of the slave was 'a widespread prospect of suffering, anguish, and death', now declaring it to be 'an affair of high morals' to drive back into that doom any innocent victim appealing to God and man, and flying for life and liberty. We have heard clergymen in their pulpits preaching implicit obedience to the powers that be, whether they are of God or the Devil — insisting that God's tribute should be paid to Caesar, and, by sneering at the scruples of the private conscience, denouncing every mother of Judea who saved her child from the sword of Herod's soldiers.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1850s, The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question (1859)

Gangubai Hangal photo
Théodore Guérin photo
Bernie Sanders photo
Charles Kingsley photo

“Fools! who fancy Christ mistaken;
Man a tool to buy and sell;
Earth a failure, God-forsaken,
Ante-room of Hell.”

Charles Kingsley (1819–1875) English clergyman, historian and novelist

The World's Age, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Attributed

Salman Khan photo
Hayley Jensen photo
Robert Francis Kennedy, Jr. photo
Tim O'Reilly photo
Amir Khusrow photo

“The Turks, whenever they please, can seize, buy or sell any Hindu.”

Amir Khusrow (1253–1325) Indian poet, writer, musician and scholar

Trs, in Elliot and Dowson, III. quoted from Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 5
Nuh Siphir

Jaroslav Hašek photo
Robert LeFevre photo

“Formal government can be defined as: a group of men who sell retribution to the inhabitants of a limited geographic area at monopolistic prices.”

Robert LeFevre (1911–1986) American libertarian businessman

Rampart Institute, p. 409.
The Fundamental of Liberty (1988)

Slavoj Žižek photo
Robert Crumb photo
George Carlin photo

“I wonder why prostitution is illegal. Why should it be illegal to sell something that's perfectly legal to give away?”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson (1989)
Interviews, Television Appearances

Paul Ryan photo
Keshub Chunder Sen photo
Amir Khusrow photo
Mark Tully photo
Gregory of Nyssa photo
Tina Fey photo
Fred Dibnah photo

“We've become a nation of con men, living by selling double glazing to each other.”

Fred Dibnah (1938–2004) English steeplejack and television personality, with a keen interest in mechanical engineering

Unsourced

Patrick Stump photo
Alan Keyes photo

“There's not a single thing on offer in this all-too-temporary world for which you should ever sell your soul.”

Alan Keyes (1950) American politician

Lynn University Commencement Speech, May 6, 2000. http://renewamerica.us/archives/speeches/00_05_06lynnu.htm.
2000

Maxfield Parrish photo
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“The gods sell anything and to everybody at a fair price.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1870s, Society and Solitude (1870), Quotation and Originality

Anastacia photo
Ian McCulloch photo
Roger Ebert photo
Bill Gates photo
Andreas Schelfhout photo

“You can't sell anything to the museum nowadays. If one presents something now, one is partly rejected because they have no money in cash. Yes Friend, that's how things are going... It's going very bad here with the old arts in The Hague., I hardly hear of anything. How are things going in Rotterdam? I believe that also there is not much moving.”

Andreas Schelfhout (1787–1870) Dutch painter, etcher and lithographer

translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek
(original Dutch, citaat van Schelfhout, uit zijn brief:) Aan het museum [ver]koop men tans niets. Als men iets tans presanteert, wort men daar mede afgewezen, daar is geen geld bij kas. Ja Vriend, zo gaat het.. .Het is tans zeer dwaas met de oude kuns bij ons [in Den Haag]., ik hoor bijna van niets. Hoe gaat het te Rott.m? Ik geloof dat daar ook niet veel beweeging er mede is.
Quote from Schelfhout's letter to J. Immerzweel, 8 Jan. 1825; original text from the letter in the collection of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (Royal Library), The Hague, no. 133 C12

George Galloway photo
Harriet Harman photo

“If he votes against, that's the only principled position. If he abstains, it's a cop-out; if he votes for, it's a sell-out.”

Harriet Harman (1950) British politician

On Nick Clegg and his vote to increase tuition fees http://www.postchronicle.com/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi?archive=234&num=335499, 30 November 2010.

Halldór Laxness photo

“Sell the country, bury bones. What else?”

the unself-conscious policeman
Atómstöðin (The Atom Station) (1948)

Neil Gaiman photo
Ron White photo
Adam Smith photo
Ernesto Che Guevara photo
Jef Raskin photo

“I wanted that work to carry the most important message … that a person mustn't sell himself. I made a chocolate bar that can't be bought, using a giant panel of concrete.”

Pavel 183 (1983–2013) Russian street artist

as reported by Vladimir Isachenkov "P183 Dead: Street Artist Known As 'Russian Banksy' Dies At 29 Years Old" at The Huffington Post (3 April 2013) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/03/p183-dead-street-artist-russian-banksy-dies_n_3006544.html

Michael Lewis photo
Bernice King photo
Anne Brontë photo

“You might as well sell yourself to slavery at once, as marry man you dislike.”

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XLI : Hope Springs Eternal in the Human Breast; Helen to Esther

Ha-Joon Chang photo
Sebastian Vettel photo

“Well, I think as far as I understood if you said to Red Bull I think we are still selling cans, so not much has happened in that regard.”

Sebastian Vettel (1987) German racing driver in Formula 1

http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/2010/7/11046.html July, 22 2010.
The situation in Red Bull.
Sourced quotes

Laura Antoniou photo
Benjamin Graham photo
Michael E. Porter photo
Ron Paul photo
Talib Kweli photo
John R. Bolton photo
Aldo Leopold photo
David Korten photo
W.E.B. Du Bois photo

“It was a bright September afternoon, and the streets of New York were brilliant with moving men…. He was pushed toward the ticket-office with the others, and felt in his pocket for the new five-dollar bill he had hoarded…. When at last he realized that he had paid five dollars to enter he knew not what, he stood stock-still amazed…. John… sat in a half-maze minding the scene about him; the delicate beauty of the hall, the faint perfume, the moving myriad of men, the rich clothing and low hum of talking seemed all a part of a world so different from his, so strangely more beautiful than anything he had known, that he sat in dreamland, and started when, after a hush, rose high and clear the music of Lohengrin's swan. The infinite beauty of the wail lingered and swept through every muscle of his frame, and put it all a-tune. He closed his eyes and grasped the elbows of the chair, touching unwittingly the lady's arm. And the lady drew away. A deep longing swelled in all his heart to rise with that clear music out of the dirt and dust of that low life that held him prisoned and befouled. If he could only live up in the free air where birds sang and setting suns had no touch of blood! Who had called him to be the slave and butt of all?… If he but had some master-work, some life-service, hard, aye, bitter hard, but without the cringing and sickening servility…. When at last a soft sorrow crept across the violins, there came to him the vision of a far-off home — the great eyes of his sister, and the dark drawn face of his mother…. It left John sitting so silent and rapt that he did not for some time notice the usher tapping him lightly on the shoulder and saying politely, 'will you step this way please sir?'… The manager was sorry, very very sorry — but he explained that some mistake had been made in selling the gentleman a seat already disposed of; he would refund the money, of course… before he had finished John was gone, walking hurriedly across the square… and as he passed the park he buttoned his coat and said, 'John Jones you're a natural-born fool.”

Then he went to his lodgings and wrote a letter, and tore it up; he wrote another, and threw it in the fire....
Source: The Souls of Black Folk (1903), Ch. XIII: Of the Coming of John

Mitt Romney photo

“There are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47% who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what.

And I mean the president starts off with 48, 49, 4— he starts off with a huge number. These are people who pay no income tax. 47% of Americans pay no income tax. So our message of low taxes — doesn't connect. So he'll be out there talking about tax cuts for the rich.

I mean, that's what they sell every four years. And so my job is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

2012-09-17
Secret Video: Romney Tells Millionaire Donors What He Really Thinks of Obama Voters
David
Corn
w:David Corn
Mother Jones
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/secret-video-romney-private-fundraiser
2012-09-18
Posed question: "For the past three years, all everybody's been told is 'don't worry, we'll take care of you'. How are you going to do it, in two months before the elections to convince everybody, you've got to take care of yourself?"
2012

Peter F. Drucker photo
Vincent Van Gogh photo

“It is hard, terribly hard, to keep on working when one does not sell, and one literally has to pay for one's colors from what would not be too much for eating, drinking and lodgings, calculated ever so strictly. And then, besides, the models... All the same they are building State museums, and the like, for hundreds of thousands, but meanwhile, the artists can go to the dogs.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Quote in his letter, from Antwerp, Belgium, Dec. 1885; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 438) p. 35
1880s, 1885

Charles Lamb photo
Herbert Spencer photo

“What is essential to the idea of a slave? We primarily think of him as one who is owned by another. To be more than nominal, however, the ownership must be shown by control of the slave's actions — a control which is habitually for the benefit of the controller. That which fundamentally distinguishes the slave is that he labours under coercion to satisfy another's desires. The relation admits of sundry gradations. Remembering that originally the slave is a prisoner whose life is at the mercy of his captor, it suffices here to note that there is a harsh form of slavery in which, treated as an animal, he has to expend his entire effort for his owner's advantage. Under a system less harsh, though occupied chiefly in working for his owner, he is allowed a short time in which to work for himself, and some ground on which to grow extra food. A further amelioration gives him power to sell the produce of his plot and keep the proceeds. Then we come to the still more moderated form which commonly arises where, having been a free man working on his own land, conquest turns him into what we distinguish as a serf; and he has to give to his owner each year a fixed amount of labour or produce, or both: retaining the rest himself. Finally, in some cases, as in Russia before serfdom was abolished, he is allowed to leave his owner's estate and work or trade for himself elsewhere, under the condition that he shall pay an annual sum. What is it which, in these cases, leads us to qualify our conception of the slavery as more or less severe? Evidently the greater or smaller extent to which effort is compulsorily expended for the benefit of another instead of for self-benefit. If all the slave's labour is for his owner the slavery is heavy, and if but little it is light. Take now a further step. Suppose an owner dies, and his estate with its slaves comes into the hands of trustees; or suppose the estate and everything on it to be bought by a company; is the condition of the slave any the better if the amount of his compulsory labour remains the same? Suppose that for a company we substitute the community; does it make any difference to the slave if the time he has to work for others is as great, and the time left for himself is as small, as before? The essential question is—How much is he compelled to labour for other benefit than his own, and how much can he labour for his own benefit? The degree of his slavery varies according to the ratio between that which he is forced to yield up and that which he is allowed to retain; and it matters not whether his master is a single person or a society. If, without option, he has to labour for the society, and receives from the general stock such portion as the society awards him, he becomes a slave to the society.”

Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) English philosopher, biologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist

The Man versus the State (1884), The Coming Slavery

Dietrich Bonhoeffer photo
Neil Gaiman photo

“A good basic selling idea, involvement and relevancy, of course, are as important as ever, but in the advertising din of today, unless you make yourself noticed and believed, you ain't got nothin.”

Leo Burnett (1891–1971) American advertising executive

As quoted in Street-Smart Advertising: How to Win the Battle of the Buzz (2006) by Margo Berman, p. 95

Bill Engvall photo
Glenn Beck photo
Prito Reza photo
Nathaniel Hawthorne photo
Jehst photo
Willem Roelofs photo

“I also sold some drawings [he means his watercolors] - the Dutch pieces [he painted in The Netherlands] sell rather well [in Brussels, where he lived then]. People seem to prefer colored drawings here. (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)”

Willem Roelofs (1822–1897) Dutch painter and entomologist (1822-1897)

(original Dutch: citaat van Willem Roelofs, in het Nederlands:) Ik heb alweder ook eenige teekeningen [hij bedoelt hiermee zijn aquarellen] verkocht – de Hollandsche gevallen vinden nogal aftrek [in Brussel, waar hij toen woonde]. Men schijnt hier gekleurde teekeningen te prefereren.
In a letter to Jan Weissenbruch, 18 Dec. 1847; in Haagsch Gemeentearchief / Municipal Archive of The Hague; ; as cited by De Bodt, in Halverwege Parijs, Willem Roelofs en de Nederlandse Schilderskolonie in Brussel, Gent, 1995a, in 1995a, pp. 233-35
1840' + 1850's

Russell Brand photo
Charles Manson photo

“I wanna say this to every man that has a mind, to all the intelligent life forms that exist on this planet Earth. I wish the British would say this to the Scottish Rites and the Masons and all the people with minds who have degrees of knowledge, and who are aware of courts, laws, United Nations, governments.
In the 40s, we had a war, and all of our economies went towards this war effort. The war ended on one level, but we wouldn't let it end on the other levels. We kept buying and selling this war. I'm not locked in the penitentiary for crimes, I'm locked in the Second World War. I'm locked in the Second World War with this decision to bring to the World Court - there must be a One World Court, or we're all gonna be devoured by crime.
Crime, and the definition of crime comes from Nuremberg, when the judges decided that they wanted to call Second World War a crime. Honor and war is not a crime. Crime is bad. When you go to war and you're a soldier, and you fight for your God and your country, that's not criminal. That's honorable. That's what you must do to be a man. If you don't fight for your God and your country, you're not worth anything. If you have no honor, then you're not worth petty's pigs.
Truth is, we've got to overturn this decision that you made in the Second World War, or the Second World War will never end. Degrees of the war was written in Switzerland, in Geneva, at conferences that were made by the men at the tables, clearly stated that anyone in uniform would be given the respect of their rank and their uniforms. Then when the United States and got all the Germans in handcuffs, they started breaking their own rules. And they've been breaking their own rules ever since. War is not a crime, but if you judge war as a crime in a court room, then turn around: If 2 + 3 = 5, and 3 + 2 = 5; if you say war is a crime, then crime becomes your war. I am, by all standards, a prisoner of war.
I've been a prisoner of war since 1944 in Juvenile Hall, for setting a school building on fire in Indianapolis, Indiana. I've been locked up 45 years trying to figure out why I got to be a criminal. It matters not whether I want to be; you've got to keep criminals going to keep the war going because that's your economy, your whole economy is based on the war. You've got to get your dollar bills off the war, you've got your silver market sterling off of the war, you've got to take your gold and your diamonds off of the war - You've got to overturn that decision, that hung 6000 men by the neck.
You killed 6000 soldiers for obeying orders. It's wrong. And the world has got to accept that's wrong. When you accept you're wrong, and you say you're sorry for all the things you've done, then that will be a note on that court, and we'll have some harmony going on this planet Earth, now.”

Charles Manson (1934–2017) American criminal and musician

Interview with Bill Murphy (1994) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAjh_wOByoY

John Kenneth Galbraith photo

“Of all the mysteries of the stock exchange there is none so impenetrable as why there should be a buyer for everyone who seeks to sell.”

Source: The Great Crash, 1929 (1954 and 1997 https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25728842M/The_Great_Crash_1929), Chapter VI, The Crash, p. 104

John Turner photo

“I'm not going to allow Mr. Mulroney to sell out our birthright, I'm not going to let Mr. Mulroney destroy a great 120 year old dream called Canada.”

John Turner (1929) 17th Prime Minister of Canada

repeated comment during 1988 Federal Election campaign in opposition to the Free Trade Agreement.( http://archives.cbc.ca/programs/730-6569/page/5/)

Glen Cook photo

“My arguments were beginning to sound a little strained to me, too. I was in the position of a priest trying to sell religion.”

Source: Shadows Linger (1984), Chapter 32, “Juniper: Visitors” (p. 365)

John Lancaster Spalding photo
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner photo

“[The account of a man who sells his shadow is] in actual fact the life story of a persecution complex, that is to say, the paranoid narration of a man who through one event or another is suddenly made aware of his infinite smallness and at the same time finds the means by which to deceive the world in general, concerning this discovery.”

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938) German painter, sculptor, engraver and printmaker

in a letter to Gustav Schiefler, 27 June, 1919; as quoted by Paul Rabe, in Illustrated Books and Periodicals in German Expressionist Prints and Drawings; The Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies, Vol. 1.: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1989, p. 119
for Kirchner the Schlemihl illustrations he made for Peter Schlemihls wundersame Geschichte ('The wondrous story of Peter Schlemihl') were a release from his existential anxieties
1916 - 1919

Philip K. Dick photo
Maxime Bernier photo

“During the final months of the campaign, as polls indicated that I had a real chance of becoming the next leader, opposition from the supply management lobby gathered speed. Radio-Canada reported on dairy farmers who were busy selling Conservative Party memberships across Quebec. A Facebook page called Les amis de la gestion de l’offre et des régions (Friends of supply management and regions) was set up and had gathered more than 10,500 members by early May. As members started receiving their ballots by mail from the party, its creator, Jacques Roy, asked them to vote for Andrew Scheer.
Andrew, along with several other candidates, was then busy touring Quebec’s agricultural belt, including my own riding of Beauce, to pick up support from these fake Conservatives, only interested in blocking my candidacy and protecting their privileges. Interestingly, one year later, most of them have not renewed their memberships and are not members of the party anymore. During these last months of the campaign, the number of members in Quebec had increased considerably, from about 6,000 to more than 16,000. In April 2018, according to my estimates, we are down to about 6,000 again.
A few days after the vote, Éric Grenier, a political analyst at the CBC, calculated that if only 66 voters in a few key ridings had voted differently, I could have won. The points system, by which every riding in the country represented 100 points regardless of the number of members they had, gave outsized importance in the vote to a handful of ridings with few members. Of course, a lot more than 66 supply management farmers voted, likely thousands of them in Quebec, Ontario, and the other provinces. I even lost my riding of Beauce by 51% to 49%, the same proportion as the national vote.
At the annual press gallery dinner in Ottawa a few days after the vote, a gala where personalities make fun of political events of the past year, Andrew was said to have gotten the most laughs when he declared: “I certainly don’t owe my leadership victory to anybody…”, stopping in mid-sentence to take a swig of 2% milk from the carton. “It’s a high quality drink and it’s affordable too.” Of course, it was so funny because everybody in the room knew that was precisely why he got elected. He did what he thought he had to do to get the most votes, and that is fair game in a democratic system. But this also helps explain why so many people are so cynical about politics, and with good reason.”

Maxime Bernier (1963) Canadian politician

page 23 in "Live or die with supply management", chapter 5 previewed April 2018 http://www.maximebernier.com/my_chapter_on_supply_management of "Doing Politics Differently: My Vision for Canada"

Aron Ra photo
Steve Jobs photo
Arundhati Roy photo

“What can we sell them? Not our soul.”

W. W. Hansen (1909–1949) American physicist

Hansen writing to himself in his scrapbook while pondering about industrial sponsorship in university research work, as quoted by [Peter Louis Galison and Bruce William Hevly, Big science: the growth of large-scale research, Stanford University Press, 1992, 57]

L. David Mech photo
Rich Mullins photo
Donald J. Trump photo
Benjamin Graham photo