Mean quotes
28K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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"Certainly, black horror movie fans have, you know, been particularly vocal. I mean, there's the whole Eddie Murphy routine about, you know, black people in a horror movie wouldn't last very long. Right? They just walk in - you hear get out. Too bad we can't stay, baby."
"Well your mom was right, in a way. What do you mean? He DID fall, right? So he wasn’t safe on the stool. Thanks, Annette. Thanks a lot. That’s exactly what I needed to hear right now. You’re a very inspiring person, you know that?"
"I suppose identity depends on memory. And if my memory is blotted out, then I wonder if I exist - I mean, if I am the same person. Of course, I don't have to solve that problem. It's up to God, if any."
"If you using local color in an unobtrusive way, it is all for the good. But if you stress it, the whole thing is artificial. But it should be used, I mean, it's not forbidden. But you don't have to stress it."
"It's very hard to look in a mirror and see anything which resembles what one feels one's self to be. I think that discomfort, that dislocation, disintegration - that raw lack of feeling whole - that dysmorphia - is a very good place, in this moment, to hunt for the kind of experience which really requires the means of poetry to be grasped or felt."
"The No. 1 question I get is, "Do you believe in an open-borders policy?" I'm like, wait a second: What does that really mean? When you say open-borders policy, do you mean that - this is like the US-Mexico border? We put up a sign that says "Keep Out," then 10 yards in we say, "Job Wanted." Is that what people mean by open borders? So that usually shuts people up. But that's the truth."
"Giving people like me a green card, a passport, and a driver's license? That's not going to be the end of the immigration conversation and debate in this country. It's like saying we elected Barack Obama president, so all of the racial problems are done. Right? I mean in some ways, the immigration conversation is just starting. Which is why when we started this campaign, we didn't call it Define Immigrant, we called it Define American. That's the question. That's what's at stake."
"No amount of success - whatever that means, quote-unquote success - no amount of success replaces the reality of being separated from my family for this long."
"A broken immigration system means broken families means broken lives. That's what is at stake."
"The distribution of tasks among the various employees follows a simple rule, which is that the duty of the members of each category is to do as much work as they possibly can, so that only a small part of that work need be passed to the category above. This means that the clerks are obliged to work without cease from morning to night, whereas the senior clerks do so only now and then, the deputies very rarely, and the Registrar almost never."
"The time for miracles has either passed or not come yet, besides, miracles, genuine miracles, whatever people say, are not such a good idea, if it means destroying the very order of things in order to improve them."
"Let them think what they liked, but I didn't mean to drown myself. I meant to swim till I sank -- but that's not the same thing."
"All one's work might have been better done; but this is a sort of reflection a worker must put aside courageously if he doesn't mean every one of his conceptions to remain forever a private vision, an evanescent reverie."
"My job as a leader is not to say, 'Hey, look at me. I'm a leader.' It's to lead. I mean, I've got to go out and find ways to win these games."
"Sales-driven cultures can really differentiate you from the majority of your competition. That doesn’t mean being salesperson oriented, just sales oriented: winning deals, smelling the blood and going in for the kill."
"And the cool kids always had a stop sign in their bedroom. Which means: "I don't care if people die. I want my stop sign." At least the assumption was that they took it down from somewhere and now there are old ladies hitting each other head-on somewhere."
"I have a streak in myself, like, I'm an exhibi- tionist. There's a side of me that really wants to show off and share parts of myself with others. I mean, that's why I live in New York, and that's why I'm an artist who shows 10 times a year."
"I made work specifically for them not to like. If you made paintings of flowers and someone says they hate it, it's like, "What do you mean? It's a flower!" But if you make a painting of your name and somebody says they hate it, it's like, "Well, why would you like a painting of my name anyway?""
"I am convinced that this is the only means of advancing science, of clearing the mind from a confused heap of contradictory observations, that do but perplex and puzzle the Student, when he compares them, or misguide him if he gives himself up to their authority; but bringing them under one general head, can alone give rest and satisfaction to an inquisitive mind."
"But young men have not only this frivolous ambition of being thought masters of execution, inciting them on the one hand, but also their natural sloth tempting them on the other. They are terrified at the prospect before them, of the toil required to attain exactness. The impetuosity of youth is disgusted at the slow approaches of a regular siege, and desires, from mere impatience of labour, to take the citadel by storm. They wish to find some shorter path to excellence, and hope to obtain the reward of eminence by other means, than those which the indispensable rules of art have prescribed."
