Quotes about use page 52
“Military men are "dumb, stupid animals to be used" as pawns for foreign policy.”
Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) United States Secretary of State
Kissinger has denied saying it.
The only evidence that Kissinger ever said this was a claim in the book, The Final Days, by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, in chapter 14 (p.194 in the 1995 paperback edition). Woodward & Bernstein claimed that one of Kissinger's political foes, Alexander Haig, had told someone unnamed, that he (Haig) had heard Kissinger say it. That's triple hearsay, made even weaker by the fact that one of the parties is anonymous. Kissinger has denied ever saying it, and it was never substantiated by Haig, nor by anyone of known identity who claimed to have heard it. As Kirkus Reviews noted about the whole book, "none of it is substantiated in any assessable way."
In fact, the quote is not even very plausible, on its face. Kissinger served with distinction in the U.S. Army during WWII, and was awarded the Bronze Star. He has always been very respectful of other servicemen and their sacrifices. For him to have said such a thing would have been wildly out of character. In fact, the awkward phrasing doesn't even sound like Kissinger, whose English prose is consistently measured and careful, despite his heavy accent, even when he speaks extemporaneously.
Misattributed
Gilda Radner (1946–1989) American comedian
Cells (1988), pg. 23, Popular's Young Discoverer Series, Discovery Channel https://books.google.com.au/books?id=mrTYvoaUlTAC&pg=PA23
Brennan Manning (1934–2013) writer, American Roman Catholic priest and United States Marine
Source: The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out
Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer
Walking on Water (1980)
Paulo Coelho book By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
Variant: I think that if we look for love courageously, it reveals itself, and we wind up attracting even more love. If one person really wants us, everyone does. But if we’re alone, we become even more alone. Life is strange.
Source: By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
“Every one of us is a minor tragedy. Most of us learn to cope.”
Elizabeth Bear (1971) American novelist
Source: Whiskey and Water
Brennan Manning (1934–2013) writer, American Roman Catholic priest and United States Marine
Source: Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging
Garth Stein The Art of Racing in the Rain
Variant: Such a simple concept, yet so true: that which we manifest is before us; we are the creators of our own destiny. Be it through intention or ignorance, our successes and our failures have been brought on by none other than ourselves.
Source: The Art of Racing in the Rain
“We become what we behold. We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …
Assata Shakur (1947) American activist who was a member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army
Source: Assata: In Her Own Words, p. 152
Source: Assata: An Autobiography
“Keep your love, I have no use for it anymore.”
Richelle Mead (1976) American writer
Source: Storm Born
“Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.”
John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America
Kieran Scott (1974) American writer
Source: She's So Dead to Us
“Freedom is what we do with what is done to us.”
Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …
Variant: Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you.
Francine Rivers (1947) American writer
Source: Redeeming Love
“Books can only reveal us to ourselves, and as often as they do us this service we lay them aside.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist
Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist
Speech, quoted in The Times (February 15, 1923).
Other works
Variant: Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.
“We are so used to releasing words. We don't know what to do with them if they stay.”
David Levithan The Realm of Possibility
Source: The Realm of Possibility
“Talent is useful, but always keep your dagger sharp.”
Jayne Ann Krentz (1948) American novelist
Source: Quicksilver
“We've already established whoever is writing us is an asshole.”
John Scalzi book Redshirts
Source: Redshirts
Robert McKee (1941) American academic specialised in seminars for screenwriters
Source: Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting
“Man must choose whether to be rich in things or in the freedom to use them.”
Ivan Illich (1926–2002) austrian philosopher and theologist
Lauren Child (1965) author and illustrator especially known for Charlie and Lola, Clarice Bean, and My Uncle is a Hunkle
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (1926–2004) American psychiatrist
On Death and Dying (1969)
“The need to write comes from the need to make sense of one’s life and discover one’s usefulness.”
John Cheever (1912–1982) American novelist and short story writer
Accepting Edward MacDowell Medal (September 8, 1979).
“What doesn't kill us makes us funnier.”
Marian Keyes (1963) Irish writer
Source: The Other Side of the Story
Raymond Chandler book The Simple Art of Murder
essay, first appeared in The Atlantic Monthly (November, 1945)
The Simple Art of Murder (1950)
“We cannot be too careful about the words we use; we start out using them and they end up using us.”
Eugene H. Peterson (1932–2018) American translator
Source: Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology
James Baldwin book Giovanni's Room
for the lack of it.' Pt. 1, Ch. 3 - p.51
Source: Giovanni's Room (1956)
“If we would just slow down, happiness would catch up to us.”
Richard Carlson (1961–2006) Author, psychotherapist and motivational speaker
Robert B. Cialdini (1945) American social psychologist
Source: Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker
Le Mystère Laïc (1928); later published in Collected Works Vol. 10 (1950)
“Oh, don't be silly - EVERYONE wants this. Everyone wants to be *us*.”
Lauren Weisberger book The Devil Wears Prada
Source: The Devil Wears Prada
“Through imagination, we can visualize the uncredited worlds of potential that lie within us.”
Stephen R. Covey (1932–2012) American educator, author, businessman and motivational speaker
“We can't take any credit for our talents. It's how we use them that counts.”
Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer
Source: A Wrinkle in Time: With Related Readings
Simon Baron-Cohen (1958) psychologist and author
Source: Zero Degrees of Empathy: A New Theory of Human Cruelty
Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer
Source: New and Selected Poems, Vol. 1
“What strange places our lives can carry us to, what dark passages.”
Dr. Jonas Lear
Variant: I feel as if I've entered a new era of my life. What strange places our lives carry us to. What dark passages.
Source: The Passage Trilogy, The Passage (2010)