Quotes and text excerpts about "people"

“ It is not the people who shine in society, but the people who brighten up the back parlor; not the people who are charming when they are out, but the people who are charming when they are in, that are good to live with. ”

“ If people reverence men’s art and feel their sacrifices are worth while, to themselves, as well as to other people, they must not just pity the art of women. It doesn’t matter to women. But it’s so jolly bad for men, to go about feeling lonely and superior. Men, and the women who imitate them, bleat about women ‘finding their truest fulfilment in self-sacrifice.’ In speaking of male art it is called self-realisation. ”

“ SOME people cannot understand how a girl can marry a man she doesn't love. She can do it more easily than she can stay at home, watch half her friends marry, and feel herself slowly ossifying into something worthless and unessential. It takes more courage to sit quietly, wait for what may never come, and observe without misgiving the man you might have had making some other woman's life happy and complete. ”

“ I read the people in the book. I am at home where people are. I am alien where people are not. There’s no use trying to get me to approve of anything that dont include the people. That which dont include the people is empty. Just as a man’s heart if it does not include the people is void. I am drunk with the crowd. I am bathed in the mass. I give myself to the common stream. I dont want to be found somewhere off alone. I want to be lost somewhere off alone. I want to be lost somewhere in the crowd. I never feel so pinioned as when I’m alone. I never feel so free as when I’m in the crowd. ”

“ A drunken people can never be the basis of a free government. It is the corner-stone neither of virtue, prosperity, nor progress. To us, therefore, the title-deeds of whose estates, and the safety of whose lives depend upon the tranquility of the streets, upon the virtue of the masses, the presence of any vice which brutalizes the average mass of mankind, and tends to make it more readily the tool of intriguing and corrupt leaders, is necessarily a stab at the very life of the nation. ”

“ I know sensible people who do very brutal things: there must be something finer than common sense: it must be a mixture of sense and sympathy and imagination, and delicacy and humour and tact—and I can't find a better way of expressing it than to call it a sense of beauty, a faculty of judging, in a fine, sweet-tempered, gentle, quiet way, with a sort of instinctive prescience as to where the ripples of what you do and say will spread to, and what sort of effect they will produce. That's the right sort of virtue—attractive virtue—which makes other people wish to behave likewise. ”

“ I love good-looking people; and one sees so few of them. Just glance round the room: all ugly people; one walks crooked, another has a stoop, this one’s bust sticks out for miles, that one has a fat stomach. I can’t stand parts of the body that bulge: it makes me sick to look at them. . . . Yes, to be accurate, nearly everybody’s ugly. Do you know, if you were to take all the heroines out of all the novels in the world, you’d just get one heap of pretty women. No novelist ever dares take an ugly, squinting, crooked or hump-backed heroine. ”

“ I do not know how many extremely wise people are on earth if I cannot find five people who would escape unharmed by standing up to him. But those people who are blinded by the world outside do not know anything about him. Therefore, if he is clothed in a handsome garment and saunters in front of them, dressing up beautifully, they bow down to him blindly like to God. The devil clothes himself the most in the powerful people of this world, and he is celebrated through the pride of great people in this way so that many submit to those lords in evil things out of fear. ”

“ An Impressionist is a person who paints what other people think he sees.
A Popular Artist is a person who paints what other people think they see.
A Successful Artist is a person who paints what he thinks other people see.
A Great Artist is a person who paints what other people see they think.
A Failure is a person who sees what other people think they paint.
A Portraitist is a person who paints what other people don't think he sees.
A Landscape Painter is a person who doesn't paint what other people see.
A Realist is a person who sees what other people don't paint. ”

“ The people of the United States are one people, as has already been proved: they were one people, as far as a people at all, prior to independence, because under the same Common Law and subject to the same sovereign, and have been so since, for as united States they gained their independence and took their place among sovereign nations, and as united States they have possessed and still possess the government. As their existence before independence in distinct colonies did not prevent their unity, so their existence since in distinct States does not hinder them from being one people. ”

“ For our life to be good, there’s only one remedy: for people themselves to be better. And when people become better, then the life will re-arrange itself into that what life must be among good people.
A long-time deception clouds people’s minds – a false belief that a good arrangement can lead bad people to a good life (as if it’d be possible to make good bread out of rotten grains) , and this deception has already done and continues to do a lot of harm to people. ”

“ The American people will always be progressive as well as conservative; but they have learned a lesson, which they much needed against false democracy: civil war has taught them that "the sacred right of insurrection" is as much out of place in a democratic state as in an aristocratic or a monarchical state; and that the government should always be clothed with ample authority to arrest and punish whoever plots its destruction. They must never be delighted again to have their government send a national ship to bring hither a noted traitor to his own sovereign as the nation's guest. ”

“ The excesses of the people cannot, I fear, be justified; it would undoubtedly have done them credit, both as men and as Christians, if they had possessed their new acquired power with moderation. But let it be remembered that the populace in no country ever use power with moderation; excess is inherent in their aggregate constitution: and as every Government in the world knows that violence infallibly attends power in such hands, it is doubly bound in common sense, and for common safety, so to conduct itself, that the people may not find an interest in public confusions. ”

“ There are people out there who love you and care about you just the way you are. And so, if you ever feel like because of bullying, because of what people are saying, that you’re getting down on yourself, you’ve got to make sure to reach out to people you trust. ”

“ The spirit of America is right. The people have the power. They are right at heart. The only weakness in America is the failure of many thousands of our men and women to take an active interest in the affairs of government. Hundreds of thousands, yes millions, of our voters fail to go to the polls on election day to vote. They do not seem to feel any gratitude for the privilege of living in a free country where liberty is guarded by written guaranties of a Constitution which cannot be changed, except by the will of the people themselves. ”

“ It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts—for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free. ”

“ Always feel responsible for what you laugh at: very often people say things tentatively to see if you will laugh: you help to fix their standard by the way you take it, and you often throw your weight into the wrong scale because you are afraid of seeming priggish. A man's sense of humour is different from a woman's; when you go into the world you must be careful not to laugh just because a man makes a joke, until you are quite sure that it is one to laugh at. ”

“ A very witty person is no one's enemy so much as his own: he amuses people at the expense of others, and the former have a pleasant conviction that their turn will come presently, and no one feels safe. ”

“ Taxation is a boastful performance for a legislature and ministry who sit without consulting the mass of the people; it is a baneful subject for a people powerless in the State. To tax a man without his concurrence, without listening to his objections, without his having any voice in the nomination of the tax leviers, is clearly robbery, and if you will not be honest, the people must refuse to be robbed. If you will not reform the representation, then the unenfranchised taxpayers will revolt. If they must not have the right to vote, they will not regard it as a duty to pay. ”

“ Every one knows how often something goes wrong at a big pleasure; the right people are not there, or your dress is not quite right; you are tired, or you say the wrong thing; while, if you get much pleasure, a certain monotony is soon felt, and you envy the vivid enjoyment of the girl who scarcely ever has a treat. ”

“ A whole nation cannot be bribed; and if its representatives are, it is not the fault, but the misfortune, of the nation: And if the corrupt save themselves by corrupting others, the people, who suffer by the corruptions of both, are to be pitied, and not abused. Nothing can be more shameless and provoking, than to bring a nation, by execrable frauds and extortions, against its daily protestations and remonstrances, into a miserable pass, and then father all those villainies upon the people, who would have gladly hanged the authors of them. ”

“ Take a novelist: he has to have a picture in his mind all the time—a clear visualisation of a place—a room, a garden, a wood; then he must know how his people move and look and speak, and he has to fly backwards and forwards from one to another; then he has the talk to create, and he has to be always rejecting thoughts and impressions and words, good enough in themselves, but not characteristic. It is a fearful strain on imagination and emotion, on phrase-making and word-finding. The real wonder is not that a few people can do it better than others, but that anyone can do it at all. ”

“ Is there any short cut from a man to himself? Every time you shut a door you shut it on yourself. When you close one out you are one time shut in. When you close the people out you are millions of times shut in. You cant shut out without shutting in. Every dollar you lay away against others is laid away against yourself. The barrier you set up against the world. It’s as hard for you to get over it as for the world to get over it. It’s like hating somebody. ”

“ The real master is not the man who masters men, but who makes them master themselves. The masterful man in getting out of people what he wants, is the man who makes the people want him to have what he wants—makes them keep giving it to him fresh out of their hearts every day. ”

“ For ourselves, the balance of advantages between defeat and triumph may admit of question. For them, all truly valuable things are dependent on our complete success; for thence would come the regeneration of a people,—the removal of a foul scurf that has overgrown their life, and keeps them in a state of disease and decrepitude, one of the chief symptoms of which is, that, the more they suffer and are debased, the more they imagine themselves strong and beautiful. No human effort, on a grand scale, has ever yet resulted according to the purpose of its projectors. ”

“ It takes more brains to pursue a mutual interest with a man than to slump down without noticing him into being an altruist with him. Any man can be a selfish man in a perfectly plain way and any man can be an altruist—if he does not notice people enough, but it takes all the brains a man has and all the religion he has to pursue with the fear of God and the love of one's kind, a mutual interest with people one would like to give something to and leave alone.
This is what I call the soul of true business and of live salesmanship. ”

“ Art and science are very beautiful things; but just because they are so beautiful they should not be spoiled by the compulsory combination with them of vice: that is to say, a man should not get rid of his obligation to serve his own life and that of other people by his own labor. Art and science have caused mankind to progress. Yes; but not because men of art and science, under the guise of division of labor, have rid themselves of the very first and most indisputable of human obligations,--to labor with their hands in the universal struggle of mankind with nature. ”

“ A democracy cannot be a government by groups: it must be a government by every one.
Now I do not mean to say that we in this country all have the proper feeling toward our neighbor. We are not all good citizens of a democracy. Many people have pride, selfishness, and hate. Many people do not seem to care how the rest of the world lives. Such people are not worthy to have the privileges of living in a democracy. Many people are also ignorant in matters of government. They do not seem to care what kind of a government we have. In fact many people will not vote on election day. ”

“ In art, in life, in religion, in literature, it's a mistake to worship the saints—you don't make them divine, you only confuse things, and bring down the divine to your own level. The truth—the truth—why can't people see how splendid it is, and that it is one's only chance of getting on! To shut your eyes to the possibility of the great man having a touch of the commonplace, a touch of the ass, even a touch of the knave in him, doesn't ennoble your conception of human nature. ”

“ I do not believe in a woman being thoroughbred if she cannot do what comes to her to do; she may have little bodily strength, but if she is of the right sort, spirit carries her through, just as you often find uneducated people, unnerved by pain or fright, crying and pitying themselves: a real lady has nerve for it all, though she is ten times more sensitive, and, till the occasion arises, she may lie on the sofa all day, and believe herself quite unable to do a thing! ”

“ LOVING IS THE ONLY LIFE Loving is the only life. Living must give us time for life. It is not enough to fill your lungs with air. You must fill your lungs with life. The heart must not only beat. It must beat the dance of life. It is not important to live so many years. It is important to live so much life. You have dollars. But have you life? You write something. People admire you. You are famous for some reason or other. That is all very great. But there is something beyond. Life is beyond. Eating and sleeping is not life. Love alone is life. ”

“ It is a pity that old men grow unfit for war, not only by their incapacity for new ideas, but by the peaceful and unadventurous tendencies that gradually possess themselves of the once turbulent disposition, which used to snuff the battle-smoke as its congenial atmosphere. It is a pity; because it would be such an economy of human existence, if time-stricken people (whose value I have the better right to estimate, as reckoning myself one of them) could snatch from their juniors the exclusive privilege of carrying on the war. ”

“ When we complain about life, saying that our life is poorly designed, – we don’t realize it’s not that our life is badly designed but that we don’t do what is needed. And it’s just as if a drunkard began to complain that he became a drunkard because many restaurants and pubs are around, while these many restaurants and taverns are around just because many of drunkards like him have appeared.
The life is given to people as a blessing, if only they used it as they should have. If only people lived not in hate toward each other, but in love, the life would be perpetual blessing for all. ”

“ I do not believe that we, born here in America, realize the value of human liberty. It comes to us as a heritage. We accept it as we accept the sunlight, the springtime, the harvest. I am afraid that we seldom stop to recall the fact that the great blessing of human liberty, as we have it here in America, did not exist before our Nation was born. Always remember that there were thousands of years before our country came into being, when the people, men, women, and children living in many countries of the [pg 028] world and under many forms of government dreamed, hoped, and prayed for freedom. ”

“ The first thing for a man to do to get his way with another man—install a new brain track with him that they can use together, is to surprise the man by picking out for him and doing to him the one thing that he knows that you of all others would be the last man to do.
It looks as if the second thing to do is to surprise the man into doing something himself that he knew that he himself anyway of all people in the world, is the last man to do. ”

“ The marriage of a citizen of the People's Republic of China to a foreigner shall be bound by the law of the place where they get married, while a divorce shall be bound by the law of the place where a court accepts the case. ”

“ My love of mankind is individual. I am patriotic only about what I admire, and my devotion to humanity burns as brightly for Europe as for America. It flames up swiftly for Mexico if I am painting the peon there; it warms towards the bull fighter of Spain if in spite of its cruelty there is that element in his art which I find beautiful; it intensifies before the Irish peasant whose love, poetry, simplicity, and humor have enriched my existence just as completely as though these people were of my own country and my own hearthstone. ”

“ Among all deputies to the Fourteenth National People's Congress, the percentages of grassroots deputies, especially those who are frontline workers, farmers and professional technical personnel, shall be greater than those to the Thirteenth National People's Congress, and there shall be a proper increase in the number of deputies who are migrant workers. The percentage of deputies who are Party and government leaders and cadres must continue to be strictly controlled. ”