Mean quotes
28K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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"I mean that everything this afternoon has been too beautiful, and that perhaps everything together will never be so right again. I'm very glad therefore you've been a part of it."
"If you share a common ancestor with somebody, you're related to them. It doesn't mean that you're going to invite them to the family reunion, but it means that you share DNA. I think it's fascinating."
"In taking stock of a politician, the first question is not whether he was a good man who used righteous means, but whether he was successful in gaining power, in keeping it, and in governing; whether, in short, he was skilful at his particular craft or a bungler."
"I grew up in England at a time when England was winning Nobel Prizes right and left. I mean it was amazing how many Nobel Prizes England was winning in chemistry and physics and biology and all the sciences and at that time the teaching of science in the schools was really lousy."
"I always tell my students when you're going to be a jazz musician the first thing you've got to do is be a professional musician, and that means you have to feed yourself with the instrument."
"Alice: I simply must get through! Doorknob: Sorry, you're much too big. Simply impassible. Alice: You mean impossible? Doorknob: No, impassible. Nothing's impossible."
"What means this glory round our feet, The Magi mused, "more bright than morn!" And voices chanted clear and sweet, "To-day the Prince of Peace is born."
"The sides are steep and the nights are long and cold down in the hole, light and love and the world above mean nothing to the mole."
"Rendering oneself unarmed when one had been the best-armed, out of a height of feeling-that is the means to real peace, which must always rest on a peace of mind."
"The voice of our age seems by no means favorable to art, at all events to that kind of art to which my inquiry is directed. The course of events has given a direction to the genius of the time that threatens to remove it continually further from the ideal of art. For art has to leave reality, it has to raise itself bodily above necessity and neediness; for art is the daughter of freedom, and it requires its prescriptions and rules to be furnished by the necessity of spirits and not by that of matter."
"What if man is not really a scoundrel, man in general, I mean, the whole race of mankind-then all the rest is prejudice, simply artificial terrors and there are no barriers and it's all as it should be."
"I've made a terrible confession to you, he concluded gloomily. Do appreciate it, gentlemen. And it's not enough, not enough to appreciate it, you must not just appreciate it, it should also be precious to you, and if not, if this, too, goes past your souls, then it means you really do not respect me, gentlemen. I tell you that, and I will die of shame at having confessed to such men as you."
"Yea, death and prison we mete out To small offenders of the laws, While honor, wealth, and full respect On greater pirates we bestow. To steal a flower we call mean. To rob a field is chivalry; Who kills the body he must die, Who kills the spirit he goes free."
"When I hit a period of not being able to write music, I get up and walk away. It's pretty mean but it's true."
"It is very often nothing but our own vanity that deceives us. Women fancy admiration means more than it does. And men take care that they should."
"What the mysterious is I do not know. I do not call it God because God has come to mean much that I do not believe in. I find myself incapable of thinking of a deity or of any unknown supreme power in anthropomorphic terms, and the fact that many people think so is continually a source of surprise to me. Any idea of a personal God seems very odd to me."
"A writer who takes political, social or literary positions must act only with the means that are his. These means are the written words."
"There is no book of mine that I reject. That does not mean that I find them good."
"Each of us seeks peace of mind, but we sometimes fear that it means giving up excitement and ecstasy. Peace sounds like contentment, which sounds like settling, letting the fire go out. Actually, peace of mind allows you to go more deeply into the world and consequently to experience more excitement and ecstasy. The fire burns brighter, fueled by awareness instead of anxiety."
"I just don't like that you can either be ugly and smart or pretty and dumb, or ugly and nice or pretty and mean."
