Quotes about usual (1974 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“There are two sides to every story and the truth usually lies somewhere in the middle.”

Paul J. Alessi (1968) Actor / Producer

Source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/10696117836382928/

Truth

“As usual, there is a great woman behind every idiot.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

For women , For Men

“beginnings are usually scary, and endings are usually sad, but its everything in between that makes it all worth living.”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

Sadness

“People always said that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”

Rosa Parks (1913–2005) African-American civil rights activist

Rosa Parks: My Story, p. 116, Rosa Parks and James Haskins (1992)

People

“I usually like the Broncos because they were my favorite team until I saw Tom Brady kiss his kids. Now I'm a Tom Brady band wagon”

#1 Broncos Fan

Kiss

“In the course of my life I have very often been a prophet, and have usually been ridiculed for it. During the time of my struggle for power it was in the first instance only the Jewish race that received my prophecies with laughter when I said that I would one day take over the leadership of the State, and with it that of the whole nation, and that I would then among other things settle the Jewish problem. Their laughter was uproarious, but I think that for some time now they have been laughing on the other side of their face. Today I will once more be a prophet: if the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the Bolshevizing of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

Speech to the Reichstag, 30 January 1939, as quoted at The History Place http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/threat.htm.
1930s

Life , War , World , Problem

“One day I went alone to the river to enjoy myself as usual. When I was a short distance from the masonry, however, I was horrified to observe that the water had risen and was carrying me along swiftly.… The pressure against my chest was great and I was barely able to keep my head above the surface.… Slowly and gradually I became exhausted and unable to withstand the strain longer. Just as I was about to let go, to be dashed against the rocks below, I saw in a flash of light a familiar diagram illustrating the hydraulic principle that the pressure of a fluid in motion is proportionate to the area exposed and automatically I turned on my left side. As if by magic, the pressure was reduced.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

My Inventions (1919)

Light , Water

“Remember, when someone says ‘you’ve changed,’ it usually just means you’ve stopped living your life their way.”

Ricky Gervais (1961) English comedian, actor, director, producer, musician, writer, and former radio presenter

Way , Life , Change

“People usually blame themselves or “fate.””

Jacque Fresco (1916–2017) American futurist and self-described social engineer

However, when two cars collide at an intersection, should we blame the individual drivers, “fate,” or the way transportation is engineered so that it permits collisions in the first place?
Designing the Future (2007)

People , Fate

“There's much more in any given moment than we usually perceive, and that we ourselves are much more than we usually perceive. When you know that, part of you can stand outside the drama of your life.”

Ram Dass (1931–2019) American contemporary spiritual teacher and the author of the 1971 book Be Here Now

Life , Parting

“I meant to write about death, only life came breaking in as usual”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

Life , Death

“Most enjoyable activities are not natural; they demand an effort that initially one is reluctant to make. But once the interaction starts to provide feedback to the person's skills, it usually begins to be intrinsically rewarding.”

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934) Hungarian American psychologist

Source: Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

Nature , Effort , Personality

“Every woman is a rebel, and usually in wild revolt against herself.”

Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance

Source: A Woman of No Importance

“I gotta big mouth, I can't help it, I talk from my heart, I'm real you know what I'm sayin whatever comes comes. But my controverse problems, It's not my fault, I try to find my way in the world you know, I try to be somebody instead of just, make money off of everybody. You know what im saying, so I go down paths that haven't been traveled before and I usually mess up, but I learn, you know what I'm saying, I come back stronger, I'm not talking ignorant, you know what I'm saying. So obviously put thought into what I do. So I think my mouth, my controverse, I have not been out of the paper since I joined Digital Underground, I've been in all, you know what I'm saying, my name has not been not uttered, you know what I'm saying, and that's good for me because I don't wanna be forgotten. If I'm forgotten then that means I'm comfortable and that means I think everything is okay.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

1990s, MTV interview (1994)

Money , World , Way , Travel

“The future is usually imagined as either better or worse than the present. If the imagined future is better, it gives you hope or pleasurable anticipation. If it is worse, it creates anxiety. Both are illusory.”

Eckhart Tolle book The Power of Now

The Power of Now (1997)

Pleasure , Hope , Imagination , Future

“I see every director as a different brand. That way, it’s easy for me to compartmentalise my work. So I can easily switch from one film to the other and refresh myself when I hit a mental block. I don’t want my music to sound like a pastiche of other works. So I stop listening to my songs once the audio for a film is released. When I unwind, it’s usually with jazz.”

Yuvan Shankar Raja (1979) Indian musician

Yuvan Unplugged (2009)

Music , Way

“The important thing is to discover which individuals are honest and which are not, and the usual blanket accusation merely makes this more difficult.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"As I Please," Tribune (8 December 1944) http://alexpeak.com/twr/tdoaom/
"As I Please" (1943–1947)
Context: The important thing is to discover which individuals are honest and which are not, and the usual blanket accusation merely makes this more difficult. The atmosphere of hatred in which controversy is conducted blinds people to considerations of this kind. To admit that an opponent might be both honest and intelligent is felt to be intolerable. It is more immediately satisfying to shout that he is a fool or a scoundrel, or both, than to find out what he is really like. It is this habit of mind, among other things, that has made political prediction in our time so remarkably unsuccessful.

“When we are uncomfortable or anything unpleasant happens, we look to take refuge in something. Usually, we turn to food, alcohol, sex, drugs, money, power, or relationships. But none of these things give us the lasting protection or satisfaction you're looking for. When you understand you can't find lasting happiness in Samsara, then the desire to find true refuge becomes strong. In Buddhism, we take refuge in the three jewels — the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. The Buddha is like the doctor who understands your disease and knows how to treat it; the Dharma, his teachings, is the medicine he prescribes; and the Sangha is the spiritual community that helps you to take the medicine. To take refuge is to finally seek protection from suffering in a way that can really help you. When we think about the ultimate nature of reality and what causes us to suffer — this is the true meaning of refuge.”

Keanu Reeves (1964) Canadian actor, director, producer and musician

Source: Discovering Buddhism, 2004 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=226w04QMPzQ

Communication , Understanding , Nature , Thinking

“Depression, is usually the result of accepting suppression. Resulting from attempts to keep the peace in a relationship or subverting the truth.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1995

Peace , Truth

“Actually, you said Love, for you,
is larger than the usual romantic love. It’s like a religion. It’s
terrifying. No one
will ever want to sleep with you.”

Richard Siken (1967) American poet

Source: Crush

Love , Religion , Sleep

“People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) Genevan philosopher

Deep , Men , People

“What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe.”

Stephen Hawking book A Brief History of Time

Source: A Brief History of Time (1988), Ch. 12
Context: Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?

Mathematics , Question , Universe , Science

“Why is the truth, it would seem, revealed to some and not to others? Is there a special organ for receiving revelation from God? Yes, though usually we close it and do not let it open up: God’s revelation is given to something called a loving heart.”

Seraphim Rose (1934–1982) American Orthodox writer and saint

Source: God's Revelation to the Human Heart

Love , God , Truth , Heart

“I've found that the way a person feels about cats-and the way they feel about him or her in return-is usually an excellent gauge by which to measure a person's character”

P. C. Cast book Marked

Source: Marked

Way , Feeling , Cats , Gauge

“I usually make up my mind about a man in ten seconds, and I very rarely change it.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Change

“Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity. Those who clearly recognize the voice of their own conscience usually recognize also the voice of justice.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer

Letter to three students (October 1967) as translated in Solzhenitsyn: A Documentary Record (1970) edited by Leopold Labedz (1970) “The Struggle Intensifies".

Justice , Personality

“A photograph is usually looked at- seldom looked into.”

Ansel Adams (1902–1984) American photographer and environmentalist

“In any form of art designed to appeal to large numbers of people,…[t]he rich man is usually 'bad', and his machinations are invariably frustrated. 'Good poor man defeats bad rich man' is an accepted formula.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"As I Please," Tribune (28 July 1944) http://alexpeak.com/twr/orwell/quotes/
As I Please (1943–1947)

People , Art

““Anyway… I find what you write interesting.”
“That’s what people usually say when they disagree with it.””

Ken MacLeod book Learning the World

Source: Learning the World (2005), Chapter 7 “Television” (p. 110)

People

“The whole business of swearing, especially English swearing, is mysterious. Of its very nature swearing is as irrational as magic-- indeed, it is a species of magic. But there is also a paradox about it, namely this: Our intention in swearing is to shock and wound, which we do by mentioning something that should be kept secret--usually something to do with the sexual functions. But the strange thing is that when a word is well established as a swear word, it seems to lose its original meaning; that is, it loses the thing that made it into a swear word. A word becomes an oath because it means a certain thing, and, because it has become an oath, it ceases to mean that thing.”

George Orwell book Down and Out in Paris and London

Source: Down and out in Paris and London (1933), Ch. 32

Secret , Business , Nature

“Control over the use of one's ideas really constitutes control over other people's lives; and it is usually used to make their lives more difficult.”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

1980s, GNU Manifesto (1985)

People , Idea

“But Fascism is also a political and economic system. Why, then, cannot we have a clear and generally accepted definition of it? Alas! we shall not get one—not yet, anyway. To say why would take too long, but basically it is because it is impossible to define Fascism satisfactorily without making admissions which neither the Fascists themselves, nor the Conservatives, nor Socialists of any colour, are willing to make. All one can do for the moment is to use the word with a certain amount of circumspection and not, as is usually done, degrade it to the level of a swearword.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"As I Please," Tribune (24 March 1944) http://alexpeak.com/twr/wif/
"As I Please" (1943–1947)

“[Hitler] has grasped the falsity of the hedonistic attitude to life. Nearly all western thought since the last war, certainly all "progressive" thought, has assumed tacitly that human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security, and avoidance of pain. In such a view of life there is no room, for instance, for patriotism and the military virtues. The Socialist who finds his children playing with soldiers is usually upset, but he is never able to think of a substitute for the tin soldiers; tin pacifists somehow won’t do. Hitler, because in his own joyless mind he feels it with exceptional strength, knows that human beings don’t only want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flags and loyalty-parades. However they may be as economic theories, Fascism and Nazism are psychologically far sounder than any hedonistic conception of life. The same is probably true of Stalin’s militarised version of Socialism. All three of the great dictators have enhanced their power by imposing intolerable burdens on their peoples. Whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a grudging way, have said to people "I offer you a good time," Hitler has said to them "I offer you struggle, danger and death," and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

From a review of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, New English Weekly (21 March 1940)

Life , Death , Pain , War

“[Some correspondents] rightly claimed that State patronage [for artists and authors] is a better guarantee against starvation than private patronage, but seemed to me too ready to disregard the censorship that this implies. The usual line was that it is better for the artist to be a responsible member of a community than an anarchic individualist. The issue, however, is not between irresponsible "self-expression" and discipline; it is between truth and lies. Artists don't so much object to aesthetic discipline. Architects will design theatres or churches equally readily, writers will switch from the three-volume novel to the one-volume, or from the play to the film, according to the demand. But the point is that this is a political age. A writer inevitably writes—and less directly this applies to all the arts—about contemporary events, and his impulse is to tell what he believes to be the truth. But no government, no big organization, will pay for the truth. To take a crude example: can you imagine the British Government commissioning E. M. Forster to write A Passage to India?”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

He could only write it because he was not dependent on State aid.
"As I Please" column in The Tribune (13 October 1944) http://alexpeak.com/twr/orwell/quotes/ http://alexpeak.com/twr/ooc/#2
As I Please (1943–1947)

Truth , Age , Art , Imagination

“Charisms are not distributed at random but are dispensed by God to supply what is needful and lacking in his Church at each historical moment. If they are from God, they usually do not flow with the latest fashionable trend but much more likely contain an antidote and remedy for the perils of the time.”

Hans Urs Von Balthasar (1905–1988) Swedish Catholic theologian

First Glance at Adrienne von Speyr (1968)

God , Fashion , Time

“A joke worth laughing at always has an idea behind it, and usually a subversive idea. Dickens is able to go on being funny because he is in revolt against authority, and authority is always there to be laughed at.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"Charles Dickens" (1939)
Context: The thing that drove Dickens forward into a form of art for which he was not really suited, and at the same time caused us to remember him, was simply the fact that he was a moralist, the consciousness of ‘having something to say’. He is always preaching a sermon, and that is the final secret of his inventiveness. For you can only create if you can care. Types like Squeers and Micawber could not have been produced by a hack writer looking for something to be funny about. A joke worth laughing at always has an idea behind it, and usually a subversive idea. Dickens is able to go on being funny because he is in revolt against authority, and authority is always there to be laughed at.

Idea

“Beginnings are usually scary and endings are usually sad, but it's everything in between that makes it all worth living. ”

Sandra Bullock (1964) American actress and producer

Sadness

“The guys with big words usually have nothing to do in real world.”

Kubo

“One of the most significant management functions is control. Controls are usually directed by organization policies and procedures. They are based on the concept that people should have a thorough understanding of management expectations. And there should be consequences for noncompliance. Penalties for noncompliance are predicated upon the theory, that people will not behave if they have nothing to lose.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1978

Penalty , People , Understanding

“We all acquire two types of scars; one is visible for all to see and the other resides deep within us. Both possess pain but others can only determine if the external scars have healed. The emotional scars within are usually more painful and can linger for years.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1983

Pain

“Don't feel bad, I'm usually about to die.”

Rick Riordan book The Battle of the Labyrinth

Source: The Battle of the Labyrinth

Feeling

“Things are not as easily understood nor as expressible as people usually would like us to believe. Most happenings are beyond expression; they exist where a word has never intruded.”

Rainer Maria Rilke book Letters to a Young Poet

Source: Letters to a Young Poet

People

“New Year’s Day: Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

New Year , Hell , Time

“Things usually work out in the end."
"What if they don't?"
"That just means you haven't come to the end yet.”

Jeannette Walls book The Glass Castle

Source: The Glass Castle

“Success is a journey not a destination. The doing is usually more important than the outcome. Not everyone can be Number 1.”

Arthur Ashe (1943–1993) American tennis player

Success

“We talk so abstractly about poetry because all of us are usually bad poets.”

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

“When we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice.”

Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-born American writer

Demander un conseil, c'est presque toujours chercher un complice. — Adélaïde-Édouard le Lièvre, marquis de La Grange et de Fourilles (1796–1876), Pensées (1872) http://books.google.com/books?id=_YcDAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA2-PA479&dq=%22Demander+un+conseil,+c'est+presque+toujours+chercher+un+complice%22&hl=en
Misattributed

Funny

“The thing about God, she thought, is that He usually does help, but not until you've made an effort on your own.”

Tove Jansson book The Summer Book

Source: The Summer Book

God , Effort , Help

“I've noticed that when people are joking they're usually dead serious, and when they're serious, they're usually pretty funny.”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

People , Dead

“We all have to die a bit every now and then and usually it's so gradual that we end up more alive than ever. Infinitely old and infinitely alive.”

Roberto Bolaño book The Skating Rink

Source: The Skating Rink

“When something comes easy, you usually let it go the same way.”

Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer

Way

“If you confront anyone who has lied with the truth, they usually admit it — often out of sheer surprise. It is only necessary to guess right to produce your effect.”

Agatha Christie book Murder on the Orient Express

Source: Murder on the Orient Express (1934)

Truth

“I really don't see what is so romantic about proposing. One may be accepted - one usually is, I believe - and then the excitement is ended. The very essence of romance is uncertainty.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Algernon, Act I.
Source: The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)
Context: I really don’t see anything romantic in proposing. It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal. Why, one may be accepted. One usually is, I believe. Then the excitement is all over. The very essence of romance is uncertainty.

“But in his experience it was only a matter of time before the normal balance of the universe restored itself and started doing the usual terrible things to him.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Source: The Color of Magic

Universe , Time

“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

“No, what he didn't like about heroes was that they were usually suicidally gloomy when sober and homicidally insane when drunk.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Source: The Color of Magic

Suicide

“I'm a slow reader, but I usually get through seventy or eighty books a year, most fiction. I don't read in order to study the craft; I read because I like to read”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Source: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Books , Study , Reading

“Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a lot if difference. They don't have to makes speeches. Just believing is usually enough.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Source: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“I often wonder why the whole world is so prone to generalise. Generalisations are seldom if ever true and are usually utterly inaccurate.”

Agatha Christie Murder at the Vicarage

Source: Murder at the Vicarage

World

“It usually takes me two or three days to prepare an impromptu speech.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Variant: It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.

“… people didn't seem to be able to remember what it was like with the elves around. Life was certainly more interesting then, but usually because it was shorter. And it was more colorful, if you liked the color of blood.”

Terry Pratchett book Lords and Ladies

Source: Lords and Ladies

Life , People , Color

“Never mind what I say. I am always saying what I shouldn't say. In fact, I usually say what I really think. A great mistake nowadays. It makes one so liable to be misunderstood.”

Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband

Source: An Ideal Husband

Thinking

“The writer is either a practicing recluse or a delinquent, guilt-ridden one--or both. Usually both.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

“The manner in which,, and Salomon de Tultie wrote, is the most usual, the most suggestive, the most remembered, and the oftener quoted; because it is entirely composed of thoughts born from the common talk of life.”

Blaise Pascal Pensées

Source: Pensées

Life , Quotes

“Summer is the season of motion, winter is the season of form. In summer everything moves save the fixed and inert. Down the hill flows the west wind, making wavelets in the shorter grass and great billows in the standing hay; the tree in full leaf sways its heavy boughs below and tosses its leaves above; the weed by the gate bends and turns when the wind blows down the road. It is the shadow of moving things that we usually see, and the shadows are themselves in motion. The shadow of a branch, speckled through with light, wavers across the lawn, the sprawling shadow of the weed moves and sways across the dust.”

Henry Beston (1888–1968) American writer

Source: The Northern Farm: A Glorious Year on a Small Maine Farm

Tree , Light , Grass , Winter

“Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.”

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

Often misquoted as: "I have found that most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." or "People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be."
This quote is not found in the various Lincoln sources which can be searched online (e.g. Gutenberg). Niether does Lincoln appear more generally to use the phrase "making up {one's} mind". The saying was first quoted, ascribed to Lincoln but with no source given, in 1914 by Frank Crane and several times subsequently by him in altered versions. It was later quoted in How to Get What You Want (1917) by Orison Swett Marden (Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1917), 74, again without source. Alternative versions quoted are: "I have found that most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be" and "People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be."

Source: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/10/20/happy-minds/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CPeople%20are%20about%20as%20happy,up%20their%20minds%20to%20be.%E2%80%9D&text=Remember%20Lincoln's%20saying%20that%20%E2%80%9Cfolks,up%20their%20minds%20to%20be.%E2%80%9D

Curiously in later books Crane, e.g. Four Minute Essays, 1919, Adventures in Common Sense, 1920, "21", 1930, Crane mentions other routes to happiness and does not again use this quote.

Marden used a great many quotes in his writings, without giving sources. Whilst sources for many of the quotes can be found, this is not true for all. For instance he mentions another story in which Lincoln says "Madam, you have not a peg to hang your case on"; this also does not seem to found in Lincoln sources.

Motivational , Wise , Deep , Success

“Usually I'm remarkably good natured. Try me on a day that doesn't end in y.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Nature

“First draft: let it run. Turn all the knobs up to 11. Second draft: hell. Cut it down and cut it into shape. Third draft: comb its nose and blow its hair. I usually find that most of the book will have handed itself to me on that first draft.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Books , Hell

“The demands of Jesus are difficult because they require us to do something extraordinary. At the same time He asks us to regard these [acts of goodness] as something usual, ordinary.”

Albert Schweitzer book The Quest of the Historical Jesus

Source: The Quest of the Historical Jesus

Time

“You can't always get what you want, but if you really need something, you usually find it.”

Keith Richards (1943) British rock musician, member of The Rolling Stones

“It's usually the selfish people who are loved the most. They do what you deny yourself, and you love them for it. You give them your heart.”

Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-born American writer

Love , People , Heart , Selfishness

“The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair.”

Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English writer and humorist

“Usually when people are sad, they don't do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

Malcolm X Speaks (1965)

People , Sadness , Change , Cry

“I usually learn more from the situations I hate than the ones I love.”

Wally Lamb book She's Come Undone

Source: She's Come Undone

Love , Hate , Learning

“Cause when a guy does something stupid once, well that’s because he’s a guy. But if he does the same stupid thing twice, that’s usually to impress some girl.”

Dr. Seuss (1904–1991) American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books

Stupidity , Guy , Girl

“The people who really run organizations are usually found several levels down, where it is still possible to get things done.”

Terry Pratchett book Small Gods

Source: Small Gods

People

“You are capable of so much more than we usually dare to imagine”

Sharon Salzberg (1952) American writer

Imagination

“It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power.”

David Brin book The Postman

Source: The Postman (1985), Section 3, “Cincinnatus”, Chapter 14 (p. 267)
Variant: It is said that power corrupts, but actually it’s more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power.
As quoted in Values of the Wise: Humanity's Highest Aspirations (2004) by Jason Merchey, p. 120
This is very similar to the expression by Frank Herbert in Chapterhouse: Dune (1985): "All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted."
Context: It’s said that “power corrupts,” but actually it’s more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power. When they do act, they think of it as service, which has limits. The tyrant, though, seeks mastery, for which he is insatiable, implacable.

“Frank Sinatra stopped his car. The light was red. Pedestrians passed quickly across his windshield but, as usual, one did not. It was a girl in her twenties. She remained at the curb staring at him. Through the corner of his left eye he could see her, and he knew, because it happens almost every day, that she was thinking, It looks like him, but is it? Just before the light turned green, Sinatra turned toward her, looked directly into her eyes waiting for the reaction he knew would come. It came and he smiled. She smiled and he was gone.”

Gay Talese (1932) American writer

"Frank Sinatra Has a Cold" (Esquire, April 1966)

Smile , Cars , Girl , Thinking

“New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.”

John Locke book An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

Dedicatory epistle, as quoted in [Fred R Shapiro, The Yale Book of Quotations, https://books.google.com/books?id=ck6bXqt5shkC, 2006, Yale University Press, 0-300-10798-6, 468]
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689)

“Take a note: it usually works better if you wait until I do something stupid before getting mad at me.”

Patricia Briggs book River Marked

Source: River Marked

Stupidity , Waiting , Madness

“What people are ashamed of usually makes a good story.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

People

“Everything was usual. That was depression: being stuck, clinging to an out-of-date version of oneself.”

Edward St. Aubyn (1960) British writer

Source: The Patrick Melrose Novels

Depressing

“Curiosity is only vanity. We usually only want to know something so that we can talk about it.”

Blaise Pascal Pensées

Source: Pensées

“the greatest scholars are not usually the wisest people”

Geoffrey Chaucer book The Canterbury Tales

The Reeve's Tale, l. 134
The Canterbury Tales
Variant: The gretteste clerkes been noght wisest men.
Source: The Complete Poetry and Prose

People

“Oh, for crap's sake, I can barely look at it," Aphrodite said, turning her head from the archway and averting her eyes. "And I usually love sparkly things.”

P. C. Cast book Burned

Source: Burned

Love

“Sex is a doorway to something so powerful and mystical, but movies usually depict it in a completely flat way.”

David Lynch (1946) American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor

Sex , Way

“The things most people want to know about are usually none of their business.”

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

People , Business

“And, after all, what is a fashion? From the artistic point of view, it is usually a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

The Philosophy of Dress, The New-York Tribune, 1885. For an analysis see Fashion a Form of Ugliness http://www.oscarwildeinamerica.org/quotations/fashion-a-form-of-ugliness.html
Source: The Importance of Being Earnest

Fashion

“Jumping out a window five hundred feet above ground is not usually my idea of fun. Especially when I'm wearing bronze wings and flapping my arms like a duck.”

Rick Riordan book The Battle of the Labyrinth

Source: The Battle of the Labyrinth

Idea

“Reason, if consulted with, would advise, that their children's time should be spent in acquiring what might be useful to them when they come to be men, rather than to have their heads stuff'd with a deal of trash, a great part whereof they usually never do ('tis certain they never need to) think on again as long as they live: and so much of it as does stick by them they are only the worse for.”

John Locke book Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Sec. 94
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)

Men , Children , Thinking , Time

“He wondered at the presence of these raiders, for this country lay far to the south of the districts usually frequented by the Moslems. But avarice can drive men far, as the Englishmen knew. He had dealt with these gentry of old. Even as he watched, old scars burned in his back—scars made by Moslem whips in a Turkish galley. And deeper still burned Kane's unquenchable hate.”

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author

"The Footfalls Within" (1931)

Men , Hate , Country

“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

“The failure of a free press in most countries is usually blamed on the readers. Every nation gets the government—and the press—it deserves. This is too facile a remark. The people deserve better in most governments and press. Readers, in millions of cases, have no way of finding out whether their newspapers are fair or not, honest or distorted, truthful or colored….”

George Seldes (1890–1995) American journalist

Lords of the Press (1938)
Incorporates the famous observation of Joseph de Maistre that "every nation gets the government it deserves."

People , Truth , Color , Way

“His Majesty [emperor Charles V], [in his court in Augsburg] sent for me. After the usual courtesies and examination of the pictures which I have brought, he asked for news of you.... I replied that at Venice, in Rome and in all Italy the public assumed that his Holiness [the new Pope], was well minded to make you.. [Cardinal] upon which Caesar [= Charles V] showed signs of pleasure in his face, saying he would greatly rejoice at such an event, which could not fail to please you, and so, dear brother [= close friend], I have done for you such service as I owe to a friend of your standing.... not a day passes but the Duke of Alva speaks to me of the 'divine Aretini', because he loves you so much..”

Titian (1488–1576) Italian painter

Quote in Titian's letter to his friend Pietro Aretino in Venice, sent from Augsburg, 11 Nov. 1550, the original is in Lettere a P. Aretino' u.s. i. p. 147; as cited in Titian: his life and times - With some account of his family... Vol. 2. J. A. Crowe & G.B. Cavalcaselle, Publisher London, John Murray, 1877, p. 198
1541-1576

Love , Pleasure